Taiwan's ban on feeding food scraps to pigs starts next year, and it lands hardest on Taoyuan's black pig farmers, who depend on scraps and now face higher costs.

• The ban is meant to keep African swine fever out, but it forces a feed switch for a whole regional industry.
• Taoyuan raises 110,000 pigs and eight in ten are traditional black pigs, prized for firm meat and sweet fat that comes from mixed food scraps.
• Farmers worry that switching to commercial feed will raise costs and strip the meat of its flavor, since black pigs take ten to twelve months to raise.
• The city won approval in early August for a trial at one farm in Yangmei feeding soybean pulp from local tofu factories, with the recipe to be shared with other farmers if it works.
• Only six farms have switched to feed so far, while 82 still cook scraps under camera and temperature monitoring.

Outlook: Taoyuan expects to handle the extra food waste without trouble, and the soybean pulp trial results will decide whether black pig farmers keep their flavor edge after the ban.