January 4 2010

Suffolk softies

Being a group of softy southerners we have decided to cancel our Suffolk Pig Discussion Group meeting this Wednesday, January 6, at the Cedars, because of the weather. Andrew Knowles was going to speak. The plan is to reschedule the meeting sometime. — Keith Poulson.

Strengths and weaknesses

In a paper that compares European pig production systems in Denmark, Holland, north-west Germany, Spain and Brittany, Arnaud Buchet and Sarah Groneick list the strengths and weaknesses of each of these pig-producing regions.

This is their summary for Denmark, North-west Germany and Holland...

Denmark

STRENGTHS

• Chain well organized (genetics, meat chain) in cooperative system.
• High technical results.
• Slaughterhouses very concentrated.
• Specialisation of farms.
• Independence in cereals.
• Lots of research and advice in pig sector.
• Welfare directive already implemented.
• Well organized exports.

WEAKNESSES

• Lots of pig movements.
• High labour costs
• High environmental restrictions.

OPPORTUNITIES

• Evolution capacity (possible with slurry treatment).
• Internationalisation of companies for cost reduction.

THREATS

• Competitiveness with non-European Union countries on exports.
• Environmental constraints (no herd increase possibilities).

North-west Germany

STRENGTHS

• Close to piglet production area.
• High pig prices.
• Specialisation of farms.
• High domestic consumption.
• Low feed costs (harbour proximity).
• Strong regional cooperatives with international relationships.
• High quality controls.

WEAKNESSES

• Lots of pig movements.
• No unique pig prices.
• Dependence on piglet imports.

OPPORTUNITIES

• Creation of a supra-national pig production area to decrease production costs (with Denmark and the Netherlands).
• New evolution possibilities due to cattle herd decrease (CAP reform).

THREATS

• Decrease in domestic demand.
• Increase dependence on foreign piglets.
• Lack of traceability penalises exports.

Holland

STRENGTHS

• Production concentrated on small area.
• Low feed price (harbour).
• Low production costs.
• High welfare standard.
• High quality controls.
• Strong genetic sector.

WEAKNESSES

• Water pollution (manure treatment).
• Segmented chain.
• Dependence on exports.

OPPORTUNITIES

• Internationalisation of cooperatives.

THREATS

• Environmental constraints (no herd increase possibilities).

January 3 2010

Pig production in Spain

STRENGTHS

• Low labour and building costs.
• Integrated chain with high investment capacity.
• High domestic consumption.
• Low environmental restriction (low farm concentration).

WEAKNESSES

• Dependence on commodities market (high feed prices).
• Dependence on foreign genetics.
• Weak interprofessional organisation.
• Seasonal market (price instability).

OPPORTUNITIES

• High evolution capacity resulting in increased competitiveness (no environmental constraints).

THREATS

• Trend to increased costs (labour, buildings).

(The above analysis is taken from a paper by Arnaud Buchet and Sarah Groneickthat that compares European pig production systems in Denmark, Holland, north-west Germany, Spain and Brittany.)

North Amercia herd down 7 percent

If Canada's January 1 breeding herd is 5 percent lower than one year ago (the July and October counts were 4.9 percent and 4.5 percent lower than one year earlier), the combined United States and Canada pig breeding herds this December-January will be 7.4 percent lower than their peak in October 2007. But productivity growth will likely result in a combined pig crop in September-November that is only 5 percent smaller than the combined pig crop for autumn 2007.

January 2 2010

The good and the bad of producing pigs in Brittany

In a paper that compares European pig production systems in Denmark, Holland, north-west Germany, Spain and Brittany (see below, 'Who chooses the way you farm pigs? Not you....'), Arnaud Buchet and Sarah Groneick list the strengths and weaknesses of each of these pig-producing regions.

This is their summary for Brittany...

STRENGTHS

• High pig prices (with lots of bonuses).
• High sow productivity.
• High sanitary status (Breeder-Fattener).
• Cooperatives systems (profit redistribution).
• Low feed price (harbour, concentration, storage).
• Strong inter-professional organisations

WEAKNESSES

• Long distance from consumption areas.
• Long distance from cereals area.
• Low labour productivity.
• Impossible to increase herd size.
• Lots of small farms.

OPPORTUNITIES

• Increase in quality to increase pig price.
• Internationalisation of cooperatives.

THREATS

• Implementation of welfare directive.
• Slow concentration of sector.
• Environmental constraints (no herd increase possibilities).

TOMORROW: Spain's strengths and weaknesses.

Interest-free loans for pig producers

By Nick Bird, of Farmex

From February, pig farms will be able to apply for interest-free loans for energy saving from the Carbon Trust.

Unsecured interest-free loans will be from £3,000 to £20,000 for up to four years, with a target CO2 saving of 1.5t CO2 per £1000 of loan.

This is equivalent to a return of around 25 percent at typical electricity prices. That is, the loan is self-funding – loan repayments should be covered by the savings achieved over the period of the loan.

Loans are not restricted to electricity savings only, though most is used in this form in British pig production.

The requirement for rapid payback and the limited amount of the loans means they are aimed at the low cherries of energy saving, such as more efficient equipment and better regulation.

The lowest cherries in pig production are farrowing and weaning, where energy use is the most intensive and typically the most wasteful.

The following table compares energy use of typical/inefficient farrowing and weaner rooms with good/improved ones (from the Farmex / BPEX energy survey and other data).

The maximum potential loan has been calculated according to the Carbon Trust’s loan calculator, available on its website.

Most energy in farrowing and weaner rooms is used for electrical heating. The large differences between good/efficient and poor/typical are due to more effective use of heating, rather than different types of heater — for example, using lidded-curtained creeps with effective heating control, and better regulation of minimum ventilation in weaner rooms.

Monitoring has a key role to play, both in establishing the potential for energy saving and in helping to ensure that the project achieves the energy savings expected.

Few British pig farms have sub-metering to measure the use of individual buildings, and it may be difficult to make a good case for an interest-free loan in the absence of sound information on current use.

Meters are now available at low prices and are cheap to fit, so they are worthwhile even for farms that are not considering Carbon trust loans.

In practice, it is very difficult to estimate use on pig farms based only on the equipment fitted (though some energy consultants may tell you otherwise), because consumption is so much affected by how equipment is used.

Metering and monitoring after upgrading equipment is just as important for exactly the same reason.

Well aren’t we just the clever ones...

Well, here we are at the end of not only another year but also another decade, and we are feeling quite buoyant about the future with prices holding up very well as we enter the New Year.

Plans for Christmas have been delivered with few problems and now we are organising the first week’s deliveries for 2010, and we are pleased to report that generally there is a shortfall in supply.

This has meant that at least for now prices are secure with a few pennies more in places, particularly for the bacon end of the market place.

We reported a few weeks ago that contract prices and spot quotes would need to come closer together and this week we have seen the beginning of this trend with the lowest bacon quotes definitely moving upwards.

It was also important for the British pig industry to start the year with as few pigs in the system as possible, and this appears to have been achieved. This has been confirmed with the DAPP average weight now sitting at 78.15kgs, its lowest point since the end of July 2009.

The lighter fresh meat trade has, as is usual at this time of year, just paused for breath with the majority of smaller processors standing on for the following week, with supply and demand seemingly in balance.

Sow prices also perked up on the week with the majority of quotes now on or around the 95p/kg mark. This is also seen as a good sign for the clean pig market in the coming weeks as improving sow values signal better demand for manufacturing meat.

However, there are still many reasons to be cautious. Traditionally January is a time of price pressure.

Pig numbers have been managed effectively into the Christmas period and finally the recent cold weather may have slowed growth rates. Any increase in supply could well destabilise the market and we should never forget our European Union friends who like to send us bargain basement pork products to challenge our market place.

But, to start on a positive note for 2010, the financial markets are predicting sterling to be weaker in the short term, which can only serve to protect our precious market place. — Dan Day, Meadow Quality.

January 1 2010

Who chooses the way you farm pigs?
Not you...

Society shapes the way you produce pigs more than you do.

This is obvious when you think about it, especially when you consider the pressures imposed by the welfare and environment legislation introduced by Brussels in recent years, on behalf of society.

And if that’s not sufficient to prove the point, consider the way retailers have urged British producers to change their methods of production over the past decade, and how some retailers are even now pressing for a phase-out of farrowing crates.

‘Social background’ is definitely the biggest influence on modern European pig production, say two European Animal Management master of science students in a paper that compares European pig production systems in Denmark, Holland, north-west Germany, Spain and Brittany in France.

Although pigmeat production has become standardised in these areas, social pressures in each country have caused technical and economic differences, say Arnaud Buchet and Sarah Groneick.

“The social background is the most important factor shaping the pig farming systems which can be observed today. Those aspects have to be respected and kept in mind,” they believe.

Roll on 2010!

Pig traders had to remember that Friday came on Thursday this week due to the New Year's Day hangover holiday, but if yesterday's prices were a sign of things to come, roll on 2010. Traffic Lights commentary.

Denmark wants more farm biogas plants

The Danish government wants at least half of all farm manure produced in the country used to make biogas within the next ten years. Its 'Green Growth' programme sees biogas production as an important tool for cutting climate-changing gases from Danish agriculture.

If 50 percent of manure from Denmark’s 1.5m cows and 13m pigs is converted to gas, it could reduce the country’s production of climate-changing gases by as much as 8 percent.

The Green Growth programme is to be introduced this year and is Denmark’s way of implementing European Union climate protection and water biodiversity legislation.

At present around 80 Danish farms have biogas plants out of 5,500 pig and 5,300 dairy farms. So far, Denmark has specialised more in centralised municipal or cooperative biogas plants where manure from farmers as well as industrial by-products such as slaughterhouse waste is processed. There are around 20 of these. The biggest plant processes manure from 60 farms.

Down — but not down enough

December’s returns show the United States pig herd down around 2 percent last year - not enough to put the industry right. "I was hoping for about a 5 percent drop," said Sam Carney of Adair, president-elect of the National Pork Producers Council. He is urging greater reduction in pig herds to bring production in line with demand and end more than two years of steady losses for the pig industry. But pig prices have improved slightly of late, and that may cause some producers to think the worst is over.

December 31 2009

Antibiotics in United States pigmeat

Because of poor regulation of drug use in ‘industrial’ farm animals, consumers in the United States do not know what their food is treated with, or how often, claims Laura Rogers, who directs the Pew Charitable Trusts Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming in Washington DC. "Nor is there a system in place to test meat for dangerous antibiotic resistant bacteria," she says.

In 2008 the United States Food and Drug Administration put a limit on the amount of antibiotics used in pigs, citing the importance of cephalosporin drugs for treating disease in humans.

But the Bush administration reversed the decision five days before it was due to take effect, after receiving hundreds of letters from drug companies and farm animal trade groups.

United States farmers are reported to be giving their pigs, cows and chickens about 8 percent more antibiotics each year, usually to heal lung, skin or blood infections.

Thirteen percent of antibiotics administered on farms last year were fed to healthy animals to make them grow faster, a practice now banned in Europe.

In recent weeks the hard-pressed United States pig industry has found it profitable to send loins to Europe, notwithstanding the European Union tariff on imported third country pork of about 40p a kilo.

Although pigmeat exports from the States to Europe will be from pigs that have been produced in separate batches to European standards, importers will need to ensure an audited chain is in place, to avoid denting public confidence in the wholesomeness of pork.