Visitors watch a pig performing in the Panda Pig Two End Black International Ranch. [Photo/Panda Pig Two End Black International Ranch]

The Panda Pig Two End Black International Ranch, located in Wucheng district, Jinhua, Zhejiang province, has transformed traditional pig farming into an eco-tourism spectacle.

Visitors here can not only observe the full breeding cycle of pigs but also watch pigs playing hula-hoop or skateboarding in a setting, not with an awful smell, but fresh air scented by tea leaves and bamboo.

The panda pig, also called liangtouwu, has black head and hindquarters with a white body and limbs. As a nationally protected genetic resource, it was once endangered due to extensive cultivation and the impact of foreign breeds. Around 2000, fewer than 1,000 breeding sows remained nationwide.

Jinhua launched a revitalization project in 2013, through genetic preservation standards, circular cultivation systems, and intelligent farming technologies, to realize the green transformation of the panda pig industry.

The ranch is a representative. In 2019, Shen Jianjun, chairman of the Panda Pig Industry Development Co, rented 100 hectares of tea gardens and bamboo forests to build this panda pig-themed park.

The ranch features 5G intelligent farms equipped with automatic feces-scraping and inspection systems to ensure a clean environment. The high-precision sensors keep ammonia concentration below 1 part per million. "Such a concentration is almost undetectable in the pigsty, let alone the visitor passage outside the glass," said Zhang Fan, the company's assistant general manager.

The 5G intelligent farms achieve a feces recycling rate of over 98 percent. The feces become fertilizers for tea trees while tea adds polyphenols into pigs' feeds to improve pork texture.

Since opening in August 2021, the ranch has received over 3 million visits, generating 280 million yuan ($39.16 million) in revenue.

The industry has been revitalized. In 2024, the stock of breeding sows and the number of commercial pigs sold reached 8,253 and 90,300, growing 33 percent and 35.4 percent, respectively. The output of the whole industrial chain exceeded 1 billion yuan.