How bamboo rat meat, a centuries-old delicacy, became the rage in China a year before coronavirus outbreak
While recent reports that bamboo rats were being culled in China following a ban on their trade and consumption due to the coronavirus pandemic went viral online due to their seemingly bizarre nature, the rodents have been a delicacy in the country for centuries.
As per traditional Chinese medicine, rat meat has the potential to detoxify the body and boost the functions of the stomach and spleen, and it is a practice said to date back to the Zhou Dynasty of 1046-256 BC.
The meat shot into popularity in the country in 2018 after two young men started to upload videos of themselves breeding the rats and teaching viewers how to butcher and cook the rodents. They weren't the only ones either. Popular Chinese chef and food writer Wang Gang published a video where he showed fans how to cook fried bamboo rats, while several other netizens posted videos with titles like "100 reasons to eat rats". They all became hits online.
The boom in their popularity meant farmers in China were breeding bamboo rats that grew up to 18 inches long and weighed up to 11 pounds, and it was quite a profitable operation too. These rats could cost up to 1,000 yuan ($140) per pair alive or 280 yuan ($39) per kilo grilled.
It was a practice that was actively encouraged by local governments in rural parts of the country, as well as the state's forestry and grassland administration and their provincial bureaus in a bid to alleviate poverty.
It was a plan that was working -- 20,000 farmers who bred rats reportedly found themselves better off financially -- until the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which was suspected to have originated in China's massive wildlife industry supply chain.
While some experts suggest that bats, snakes, or pangolins have been the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus behind COVID-19, Dr. Zhong Nanshan, China's leading epidemiologist, said the pandemic might be linked to the eating of bamboo rats or badgers, both known carriers of coronaviruses.
The Chinese government subsequently banned the trade and consumption of all wildlife, which has adversely affected regions like Guangxi which is believed have a stock of 18 million rats or 70 percent of the country's supply.
Regional governments bodies like Guangxi's Poverty Alleviation Office have compensated farmers raising the rodents on small holdings, with up to $17 available in subsidies for each animal but it has not always been enough.
Images published on Chinese social media show thousands of bamboo rats that had been disposed of in a mass grave at a farm in Dongyuan county because their breeders could no longer afford to feed them. The five breeders who these rats belonged to reportedly lost nearly 1 million yuan ($141,000) in total in the last three months, forcing them to take the drastic action.
It was a similar story for Cheng Yongcai, who, until last year, ran a thriving operation that produced 20,000 bamboo rats a year in Qingyuan in northern Guangdong province, but now doesn't know what to do because of the ban.
"We still haven’t been told what to do, except that we can’t sell or release or even cull them until further notice, so we’re still keeping them, and that’s been costing us about 300 yuan [$42] per day for the past three months," he said.
The current outlook for farmers like him isn't good. Ma Yong, the deputy secretary of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation said the possibility that rats would be back on the menu was slim as there had not been adequate disease control research into the species.