The first steps towards building a big Danish-owned pig breeding farm was made on 11 December in the Jiangsu province. The project is the first large-scale Danish investment in Chinese agriculture and is based on the concept 'Safe pork' and 'farm–to–table' principles, for which Danish pig production is world-known.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark in Beijing, the ground-breaking ceremony of the project on 11 December was attended by Party Secretary from Lianyugang, Mr Tang, Mayor in Guanyun, Mr Yin, and Vice Secretary of China Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Association, Mr Ma, together with representatives from the Danish Embassy, management from Scandinavian Farms Ltd. and Scandinavian Farms Pig Breeding Technology Ltd.

Scandinavian Farms Ltd. is a Danish-owned project development company within food and agriculture, which is established in China and based on competitive technology and know-how from Denmark.

Scandinavian Farms is owned by the two founders, Peter N. Rasmussen and Martin Hjort Jensen, together with a group of Danish investors from leading companies within agricultural technology and the feed industry. The subsidiary company, Scandinavian Pig Breeding Technology, which is going to run the breeding farm, is owned by Danish pig producers.

In 2009, the Industrialisation Fund for Developing Countries (IFU) under the Danish Foreign Ministry joined in the project, which is considered to be a good business opportunity, because the project activities will create local employment and income in Jiangsu province.

The local authorities in Jiangsu focus on developing and optimising agriculture in the province, and therefore, it already has a more mechanised agriculture compared to other Chinese provinces.

The project in Jiangsu is the first of its kind and will clear the way for several other projects in the future from which both China and Denmark can benefit.