A database of every pig’s face. Voice scans that detect hogs with a cough. Robots that dispense just the right amount of feed.

This could be China’s pig farm of the future.

Chinese companies are pushing facial and voice recognition and other advanced technologies as ways to protect the country’s pigs. In this Year of the Pig, many Chinese hogs are dying from a deadly swine disease, threatening the country’s supply of pork, a staple of Chinese dinner tables.