ABSTRACT
People take it for granted that they can eat meat every day, but they may not realize that the sources of meat supplied in the market can still lead to many problems. To reorganize the unhealthy trends in the slaughter markets, the government has decided to carry out the franchise rights of fixed-point slaughters, but this will definitely influence the interests of some individual slaughter dealers. It is a contradiction faced by the government, namely to ensure that its citizens can eat healthy meat and at the same time help the individual slaughter dealers find new ways out of the problem. On 18 June 2004, apart from the supermarkets, no fresh pork was supplied
in the city district of Shaoyang. The pork retailers began to go on strike, which the municipal government had foreseen. Although 223 live pigs were slaughtered in the slaughterhouses, which represented half the normal supply, most pork was hung in the premises of the wholesalers. Many retailers visited the wholesalers to find out what had happened. Even worse, the retailers gathered and beat up law enforcement officers at one of the wholesale premises. The situation did not improve until the municipal government sent in the police who arrested the ringleader. On 19 June, some retailers began to sell pork, but the price rose from 15 yuan to 17 yuan per kilogram. One lady who bought half a kilogram thought the price was too high and went to the municipal government offices to confront the mayor. On 20 June, the pork supply returned to normal, and a leader of the provincial government called to ask about the pork price and was told it had risen to 20 yuan per kilogram in Shaoyang markets according to a report from the Hunan Provincial Committee of CPC (actually, it had been kept at 17 yuan per kilogram all the time). Up until 22 June, the supply in the markets was normal and the price fell slightly. A reform that had fermented for a year, involving more than 1,000 slaughter dealers and retailers and influencing the lives of all the city residents, gradually came on track.
