BPEX is a division of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board

BPEX Weekly: November 11, 2011

Marketing News

Winning Ways

Muffs of Bromborough were crowned the overall winner at the recent Butchers roadshow held in Bolton at the Reebok stadium.

Some 40 butchers entered 260 products and the standard was so high that almost half of those achieved a gold certificate. 

The Young Sausage Maker category had one of the youngest entrants at just eight years old, who did very well, but couldn’t quite beat Jessica a young lady from Ye Olde Sausage Shop in Accrington, who picked up the category championship for the 2nd year running.  For more details of the other category winners and future events click here.

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Delia's Delight

According to Waitrose: “Despite the milder weather one autumnal dish which has tempted customers is Delia’s latest recipe: fast roast pork with rosemary and caramelised apples. 

“Airing on TV since last week, the recipe has led to a 50 per cent rise in sales of essential Waitrose British pork fillets.”

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500 and Counting

Now British Sausage Week is over, the mammoth task of collating and evaluating all the media coverage begins, writes Tina Mulholland.

Mammoth indeed, as we are currently looking at some 500 items of coverage thus far alone!

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Knowledge Transfer

Tip of the Week: Feedback

Review the feedback on pigs you send for slaughter, eg carcase classification, pigs that ‘hit the box’, condemnations and health data.

What can you improve for next time? Feedback can be used to benchmark performance and it is important to select pigs at the optimum time to increase uniformity and profitability. See Action for Productivity sheet 22 for more information.

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Liquid Feed Best Practice

The Liquid Pig Feed Good Practice Guide has now been published on the VMD website.

The document provides information on good practice to help veterinary surgeons and farmers with the oral medication of pigs in the UK that are fed via a liquid feed system.

Click here for more.

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Pig Handling Workshop

An open invitation has been issued to a pig club meeting which will look at handling pigs.

The meeting is supported by the National Pig Health Improvement Project (PHIP) whose primary aim is to improve pig health and welfare through providing the necessary knowledge and skills.

The speaker will be Miriam Parker MBE who will share her experience on moving and handling pigs.

The meeting is on Thursday 17 November at The Bear Hotel, Market Drayton. To register, email Angela Cliff or call her on 07967 788 484. PIPR points can be accrued from attending this workshop.

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Cost of Lameness

A study on the economic and welfare impact of lameness in sows in England found an average prevalence of 4.3%, with at least one lame sow observed on 50.4% of the 113 units studied.

Costs of lameness were estimated to range from £19 to >£266 per case. A range of risk factors are discussed, for example, higher producing sows, flooring type and group size. The presence of a lameness management programme, ie awareness of risk factors, was associated with lower occurrence of lameness. Lameness is one of the factors currently being assessed in the BPEX Real Welfare/Welfare Outcomes project.

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Disease Reports

The latest surveillance report from the VLA can now be viewed by following the link below.

Some of the diseases and symptoms highlighted during September include suspected whey bloat in sows, gastric ulceration, outbreaks of greasy pig disease and lameness due to polyarthritis in finishing pigs.

A further symptom identified was lack of co-ordination in growing pigs, the AHVLA is interested to examine pigs from other units with signs which resemble those seen in these pigs (lack of co-ordination and abnormal gait, but remaining bright and alert and able to eat and drink), please contact your local AHVLA Regional Laboratory to discuss submission of possible cases; AHVLA contact details can be found here.

To read the AHVLA reports, click here.

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BPEX Live

Pig producers from across the UK took part in the first BPEX Live interactive online workshop with Dr. Luke Minion, who spoke live from Minnesota. He explained how his region’s pig health improvement measures could be applied to the UK market.

Focusing on BPEX’s recently launched Pig Health Improvement Project (PHIP), Luke noted: “The UK has an industry that could eliminate diseases such as PRRS through teamwork between producers, veterinarians, and the industry.”

He explained that it is vital producers know their neighbourhood health status first, in order to eliminate any disease from a particular area or cluster of farms. “If your health status goals are aligned – our experience says you can find a way!”

Sign up to the PHIP is free for pig producers. Simply download an application form from www.pighealth.org.uk. Alternatively, producers can contact their vet, or call BPEX on 0247 647 8877.

More than 30 people logged on for BPEX Live from their home or office computer. Producers said they found it very useful, so watch this space for more to come. To view Luke’s presentation, click here.

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Euthanasia Workshops

Two euthanasia workshops in the North will update producers on everything they need to know about pig dispatch.

Everyone working with pigs is welcome to join the Humane Slaughter Association and BPEX at the workshops.

Tuesday 15 November, The Crown Hotel, Boroughbridge, Y051 9LB

Wednesday 16 November, The Feathers Hotel, Pocklington, YO42 2AH

There will be a hot buffet at 6:00pm and the meeting will start at 6.30pm: prompt start. The aim is to finish by 9:00pm.

Email Lis Ravn or call her on 07891 656784.

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Swine Dysentery Alert

There have been reports of fresh cases of swine dysentery (SD) in Yorkshire this week. It is a reminder for producers to be vigilant about biosecurity and health management. There is advice on this in Action for Productivity 23: Swine dysentery, which can be downloaded here. Things to consider include:

•           rodent control
•           bird control
•           good hygiene, cleaning and disinfection of housing and vehicles

It is important that any producers who have cases of the disease confirmed keep others in the region informed. To benefit from free services and support to improve pig health for the long term join the Pig Health Improvement Project: www.pighealth.org.uk  or 0247 647 788

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Northern Leadership

BPEX’s leadership training course is starting its second year in the north on 7 December 11. The Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) award helps pig unit supervisors boost both pig productivity and staff motivation on their units.

BPEX knowledge transfer manager Lis Ravn said: “Managing pigs is often the easier part of being a pig unit supervisor but looking after the staff can be more challenging. This really helps the supervisors get the full potential from themselves and their staff and can lead to big leaps in pig performance.”

On completion, candidates will receive a certificate in First Line Management from the ILM after six days of management training, spread over 10 months, combined with written course work and practical application on farm.

The ILM course is designed for anyone responsible for leading people or who will take on the responsibility in the near future.

Training days take place at Sandburn Hall, near York.

For more details email Lis Ravn or call her on 07891 656784

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National News:

eAML2 Service Update

The eAML2 service is being moved to a dual server system to ensure maximum capacity and back up.

This means that the eAML2 service may be interrupted for short periods on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 November.

This server migration is a one-off operation but to complete the work there will be one more small interruption necessary. We will announce the date on the eAML2 home page.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused during the maintenance work.

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CCTV in Abattoirs

The Food Standards Agency is again discussing the use of CCTV in abattoirs at its open board meeting next week.

A report to the board says in June 2010, about 7% of slaughterhouses had CCTV installed for monitoring animal welfare in the stunning/slaughter area, with 8% having CCTV in place for monitoring animal welfare in other areas.

In September 2011, the FSA gathered information on the further uptake of CCTV has changed since June 2010. The number of establishments with CCTV in place for animal welfare has more than doubled, accounting for almost half of red meat volume.

The conclusions of the paper are while CCTV monitoring is a useful tool for monitoring animal welfare, it must only be as part of a range of safeguards to ensure the highest standards of animal.

The FSA continues to work with businesses and meat industry representatives to encourage voluntary installation of CCTV as best practice. In addition, the FSA is currently gathering a body of evidence from a range of sources, including those businesses that already use CCTV, to determine the benefits of CCTV.

To read the paper, click here.

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Sainsburys Profits Up

Sainsbury's said its efforts to help shoppers cope with tighter budgets were paying off after it reported a 6.6% rise in half-year profits today.

The supermarket, which revealed a surplus of £354 million for the six months to October 1, increased total sales by 7.6% to £12.8 billion as customer visits to its stores rose by nearly one million to almost 22 million a week.

It hailed the success of initiatives such as "Live Well for Less" and its "Feed your Family for £50" weekly meal planner and said recent investment in its food and clothing ranges was also paying off.

Chairman David Tyler said: "We are pleased with our sales and profit performance, given the challenging economic environment."

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Anaerobic Digester Open Day

Producer James Hart and BPEX are holding an anaerobic digester open day on 1 May 2012, to which all interested pig-keepers are invited. James Hart's anaerobic digester is at Hatherop, Cirencester. The open day will be 12pm-4pm. If you would like to attend please contact anna.davis@bpex.ahdb.org.uk at BPEX.

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Tulip Expansion

Plans for significant expansion of capacity at the UK's largest pork processor could provide a much-needed boost for domestic pig producers.

Tulip Food Group currently slaughters 2.5 million pigs a year, equivalent to 30% of the total UK kill but investment at two of its sites could give it the capacity to process up to 40% of the UK herd, chief executive Steve Murrells told Farmers Weekly at Tuesday's (8 November) European Food and Farming Partnerships conference in London.

The focus of the expansion over the next three years will be on Tulip's Dalehead Foods division, which is dedicated to supplying Waitrose with UK pork. Production capacity at its Ashton plant is planned to be increased from 15,000 pigs a week to 23,000 by early next year, while its Spalding site is due to be expanded from a capacity of 13,500 to 25,000 pigs a week by later in 2012. Click here for more.

(Source FWi)

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£20m Farming Fund

A new £20 million fund to help farming, forestry and horticultural businesses to become more efficient at using resources has been launched. The scheme aims to help businesses to become more profitable, while reducing the impact of farming on the environment.

Farmers, foresters, woodland owners, agricultural contractors and horticulturalists can apply for grants of up to £25,000 to invest in green projects, new machinery and improvements to animal health and welfare so their businesses can grow in an environmentally friendly way.

The Farming and Forestry Improvement Scheme will fund projects that:

•         save energy and reduce carbon emissions
•         cut dependence on artificial fertilisers through better use of manures
•         improve soil quality
•         improve animal health and welfare
•         save and recycle water
•         promote woodland management by processing timber more efficiently.

For more information click here.

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Latest BPHS Dates

Click here for full list of BPHS assessment dates in all participating abattoirs for July to December 2011.

Please note the following date changes:

Tulip, Ashton – now 22 December (instead of 8 December)

The BPEX Pig Health Scheme (BPHS) has specialist pig vets checking carcases for important pig health conditions in abattoirs across England and provides producers with free abattoir reports.

They include sub-clinical disease which is not always easy to spot on farm, but still affects performance.

BPHS reports are available to all members of the Pig Health Improvement Project. To sign up for free, call 0247 647 8877 or visit www.pighealth.org.uk

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International News:

Disease Surveillance

The EU has earmarked more than €203 million to support programmes to eradicate, control and monitor animal diseases and zoonoses, aiming to strengthen further the protection of human and animal health in 2012.

The decision was taken at the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH), where Member States also unanimously endorsed the Commission proposals to contribute €11.5 million for the emergency measures and vaccination plans taken to combat some animal diseases over the past four years.

Overall,138 annual or multi-annual programmes have been selected for EU funding to tackle animal diseases that impact human and animal health and trade.

- On Classical Swine Fever, a disease with devastating social and economic losses for the pig sector, the situation is quite favourable and €3.7 million has been allocated in 2012.

- Salmonellosis is the second most frequently reported zoonotic disease in humans, but with a steadily decreasing trend of several thousand cases annually in the notification rate of salmonellosis cases in humans over the past five years.

About €16 million are being made available from the EU budget in 2012.

Member States will also continue to carry out surveillance for avian influenza in poultry and wild birds in 2012 with the financial assistance of € 2.3 million from the EU budget.

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Cut in Antibiotics No Answer

The methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacterium, which is resistant to antibiotics, has spread rapidly in the past few years on pig farms.

Extensive use of antibiotics is thought to help it spread but reducing the use of antibiotics is not enough to eliminate MRSA on pig farms, says Els Broens in her doctoral thesis from Wageningen University.

At the beginning of 2007, the incidence of MRSA on pig farms stood at 30 per cent but by the end of 2008 it had gone up to 75 per cent, Dr Brons reports. Large pig farms (with more than 500 sows) were particularly likely to be MRSA-positive. The bacterium is transported from farm to farm in livestock trucks. Many pigs also become infected on the way to the abattoir because the MRSA bacterium is present in other pigs in the truck. Pig farmers and abattoir workers can become infected with the bacterium too, if they come into contact with live pigs. Abattoir staff who only work with dead pigs do not run any risk, says Dr Broens.

In order to cut the transmission of MRSA from pigs to humans, the bacterium needs to be combatted at source: on the farm.

Only reducing antibiotic use will not solve the problem says Dr Broens because the resistant bacteria can spread and thrive among pigs that have not had any antibiotics. Besides reducing antibiotic use, she argues for hygiene measures in order to prevent the spread of resistant bacteria on and between pig farms. This requires a joint plan by farmers, politicians, supermarkets and vets, says the Wageningen University PhD candidate.

(Source: The Pig Site)

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Doubt on GM Approval Plan

A U.S. State Department official this week called into question the effectiveness of a forthcoming European Commission plan to help smooth its approval system for genetically modified organisms (GMOs), saying it will do nothing to solve the blockage of approvals and long delay times caused by political opposition from member states who object to GMOs.

"They have identified the problem as political and they have proposed regulatory fixes, with no clear indication that those countries which have been voting 'no' in the past would now vote 'yes' based on these changes," Jack Bobo, the State Department's senior advisor for biotechnology, said.

The commission proposal comes in the wake of two independent reports that criticised the European Union system of GMO approval, saying it is severely dysfunctional and poses the risk of causing trade disruptions.

Reacting to those report findings, the commission said it would unveil a draft regulation in the coming weeks that would lay out more specific application requirements for biotechnology companies hoping to gain authorisation to import GMO food and feed to the European Union.

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Transgenic Pigs

Using genes from mice and bacteria, researchers in Canada developed pigs that are able to use phosphorous far better than ordinary pigs, according to the BPEX Export Bulletin.

They can avoid emission of much of the phosphorous, which is one of the environmental problems related to modern pig production.

The Enviropig, as the new patented pigs are called by their creators at University of Guelph, has by means of genetic engineering had its chromosomes enriched with a gene from E coli bacteria, which codes for production of phytase.

To read the Export Bulletin, click here.

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Welfare in Transit

An EU report on the protection of animals during transport suggests the space allowances provided by the Regulation should be recalculated, using a formula that considers the animals' size in comparison to their weight.

Furthermore, according to the opinion, it would be appropriate to define specific requirements for certain elements of the legislation such as the internal height of the compartments in road vehicles.

Click here for more.

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International Prices

For the latest international prices, click here.

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