BPEX Weekly: Feburary 26 2010

Marketing News

Gold Fever at Malvern

Over one hundred products achieved a gold award at the recent product evaluation roadshow, held this week at Malvern Three Counties Showground.

From the 241 entries from 44 butchers, there were also 82 silver and 35 bronze awards presented. The standard was extremely high amongst all those who attended and the judges had a tough time choosing the overall winner who was Mellors Farm Butchers with their Traditional Pork Pie. The best Sausage in the show from 120 sausages was an Edwardian Pork & Beef Sausage from Teme Vale Victuallers, Worcs. If you wish to enter your products for evaluation and be in with a chance to become a regional or national champion, there are 2 more events this season. The next is at Bolton with the last one at Ardingly in Sussex.  If you wish to enter go the www.porkforbutchers.co.uk to download an entry form.

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Bacon Connoisseurs’ Week is beginning to gather steam. Starting next week is the consumer Bacon Butty Competition, going live on Lovepork.co.uk from Monday 1st March. To win 50 bacon butties for your work place, go to www.lovepork.co.uk and hit the Bacon Butty Competition panel for more details on how to enter. 

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In the words of Pig World Publisher Digby Scott, Goodbye Mr Grumpy, Hello Mr Happy and the picture will give you an idea of who he is talking about!

Also being featured on the Bacon campaign page is information on bacon cuts and cures, plus the opportunity to download all the new recipes. Plus Anton is being filmed today (Friday) in Smithfield for his online video which will be featured not only on the Lovepork site but also on many other like-minded foodie sites too. More details next week.

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Salty, Smokey, and Slightly Sweet, Heaven in a Jar

Click here for more

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Knowledge Transfer

Tip of the Week - Monitor Farrowing

Being present at farrowing is a critical part of good farrowing house management. If it is not possible on your unit, ask yourself why not? Consider altering routines or introducing a rota to provide cover at this crucial time, or discuss with your vet the practicalities of using products to promote farrowing during the daytime, when you can be present. See Action for Productivity 14 (Newborn Management) for more tips on this topic.

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Howells and Tobin Pig Club (3rd March, 18:30) – A BPEX update and virtual farm tour around Tim Bradshaw's unit. Venue – Ramada Fairfield Manor, York. Further details – Lis Ravn 07891 656 784.

Trouble Shooting Ventilation (4th March, 19:00) - John Chambers, from J C Consulting, will discuss his experiences with managing ventilation systems to provide an optimum environment for our pigs. To make the evening even more informative and enjoyable, please come prepared to discuss any of your buildings that are being problematic. Venue - Wood Veterinary Group Animal Hospital, Quedgeley, Gloucs. Further details – Angela Cliff 07967 788 484

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Louise Dorward has more than 18years experience on pig farms in both practical and management roles. For the past six years she has managed a farrowing house, running a batch system of around 80 sows.

Having joined the Pig Industry Professional Register (PIPR), Louise was keen to take part in training activities to improve her knowledge and collect CPD points. Despite working solely in the farrowing house, Louise signed up to the full course of workshops being delivered by the farm's vet.

Louise now has regular contact with the other people who were at the workshops and can get practical advice quickly from people in similar situations. She is also learning to open her eyes to the bigger picture to improve production.

Top tips:

• Refresh your general knowledge regularly
• Concentrate on the finer details; small changes can have a big impact
• Step back and look at the bigger picture; what are you doing right? What could be improved?
• Speak with other stockpeople; put what you have learnt into context

To read the full case study visit the BPEX website.

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Producers are flocking to register for ‘Back to the future’, the second national BPEX Knowledge Transfer conference. There are just weeks until the event on Tuesday 16th March 2010, to be held at the East of England Showground, Peterborough.

To secure a ticket, contact Sue Wickham by e-mailing sue.wickham@bpex.org.uk or calling 02476 478793 before Friday 5th March.

Speakers from both the northern and southern hemispheres will lead the discussion, helping pig producers take stock, look forward and focus on new opportunities for their business.

Future gilt management, new technologies, health and staffing will be tackled, along with the future of the pork product itself. The speaker line-up is:

John Howard, Marketing director of the Danish Bacon and Meat Council 

Paul Hughes, of the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI)

Richard Hooper, Farm Manager, Harper Adams University College

Nigel Woolfenden BVSc MRCVS, Bishopton Vet Group

Mark Hawe, AFBI, Northern Ireland and Andrew Macrea, Northern Irish pig farmer

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If 5% of feed on-farm is damaged and lost to dust and waste it can cost up to £5000/year on a 500 sow unit. This could increase to £20000 plus if finishers are included, equating to an extra cost of 1 p/kg deadweight. BPEX has produced a simple guide which you can use to walk your system and look at ways of reducing the risk of waste. Working with your feed supplier and delivery driver can help a great deal. Click here to download the document:

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National News:

NFU Election Results

NFU President Peter Kendall has been re-elected for a third term after securing more than 75 per cent of the vote from NFU Council members during their Annual General Meeting in Birmingham today.

Voting also saw Meurig Raymond re-elected as Deputy President to serve his third term and dairy board chairman Gwyn Jones elected to fill the vacant Vice President post. The new office holder team will serve the NFU for two years.

Speaking after the elections, acting NFU Director General Martin Haworth said: "This is a very important and challenging time for British agriculture and I am looking forward to working with the new office holder team."

NFU President Peter Kendall said: "I am pleased to be working with Meurig for another term and I would also like to welcome Gwyn to the team. He's been dairy board chairman for six years and he brings a vast amount of experience and a successful track record of working in Europe on dairy and animal welfare issues. We have lots of work ahead not least the reform of CAP and dealing with bovine TB.

"As this year's conference has demonstrated productive agriculture is at the heart of the political agenda and it will be our job to ensure the next government fully understands how farming can deliver both the food we need and protect our environment."

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SAI Global, the UK’s premier food and farm assurance company, has been appointed to deliver the IPPC Pig and Poultry Assurance Scheme on behalf of the Environment Agency (EA).

The Scheme has been in development for more than two years and enables those farm units defined as low risk by the EA to receive assurance style data collection visits from an SAI Global Farm Assurance Assessor, instead of annual inspections by EA.

It will enable participating pig and poultry farms to save time and money through a reduction  in the number of visits and subsistence charges from the EA. We estimate the net benefit to farmers should be around £500 annually.

SAI Global will collect data relating to the unit’s IPPC permit which will then be assessed by the local Environment Officer. Providing all is in order the EA will only need to visit once in every three years.

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The RSPCA is calling for all abattoirs to have closed circuit television cameras installed, to improve animal welfare. It will be consulting with industry to ensure it becomes mandatory in all RSPCA standards and therefore in Freedom Food-approved abattoirs.

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Below are the latest BPHS assessment dates.

Assessment dates for January to June 2010 in all participating abattoirs have been published and are available on the BPEX website.

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Vion Food Group is cutting nearly half the jobs at its Haverhill site. Staff have been told around 180 jobs must go. The Little Wratting factory, formerly the Grampian Country Foods site, currently employs 387 staff.

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A new BQAP Abattoir opening in the East of England is seeking pigs. It has a weekly capacity for 3000 and is looking to kill both pigs and sows. Anybody interested in supplying should contact tony.goodger@bpex.org.uk.

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International News:

Weaning Age Research

New Australian research suggests that piglet weaning age predominately influences growth immediately after weaning and does not have a major influence on lifetime growth performance or body composition at commercial slaughter weights.

The research, published in Animal Production Science, was carried out by scientists of the University of Melbourne and Rivalea Australia (formerly QAF Meat Industries).

In total, 240 pigs (120 entire boars and 120 gilts) were selected in three replicates of 40 boars and 40 gilts and housed in pens of 20 pigs of the same sex.

Pigs were allocated to a 2 by 2 factorial experiment, with the factors being sex (entire male or female) and age at weaning (13 or 21 days). Pigs within each replicate were weaned on the same day, with the pigs’ farrowing date differing by about eight days for the two weaning ages.

Pigs were offered ad lib access to feed for the entire experimental period. Eight randomly selected pigs from each pen were tagged as focus animals. These animals underwent scanning six times from weaning through to slaughter to measure changes in body composition.

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The ISAA (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications) has just released its annuals report revealing that world plantings of GMOs rose  by over 7% last year. In 2009, 14 million farmers planted 134 million hectares (330 million acres) of biotech crops in 25 countries, up from 13.3 million farmers and 125 million hectares (7 percent) in 2008.  Notably, in 2009, 13 of the 14 million farmers, or 90 percent, were small and resource-poor farmers from developing countries.

In Europe there is overall a slight decrease in GMOs planting: Six European countries planted 94,750 hectares of biotech crops in 2009, down from seven countries and 107,719 hectares in 2008, as Germany discontinued its planting. Spain planted 80 percent of all the Bt maize in the EU in 2009 and maintained its record adoption rate of 22 percent from the previous year.

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At an EU Agriculture Committee meeting this week, MEPs  were debating a plethora of European Commission proposals to modernise food labelling amid a future overhaul of the Common Agricultural Policy. A report drafted by Italian European Freedom and Democracy Member Giancarlo Scotta was debated and voted on in Parliament's Agriculture Committee.

Here are some highlights of the recommendations they voted:

• The Commission should conduct a study on a new "European quality logo" which would be reserved "exclusively for agricultural goods resulting entirely from production in the EU". This would allow producers to display "their commitment to quality, food safety and respect of all European standards".
• The quality schemes should be better protected at WTO and the "Protected Designation of Origin" and "Protected Geographical Indication" labelling tools should not be merged.
• The "Traditional Specialties guaranteed" indication should be retained despite the European Commission saying that it does not work.
• There should be a greater and clearer definition of what actually constitutes "organic"
• “Place of farming” labeling should be compulsory, comprehensive and should not result in excessive costs.

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The southern Dutch province of North Brabant is proposing a financial incentive worth €6.5 million for intensive livestock farmers to leave the industry. The regional farmers' organisation believes the industry must shift from mass production to environment and animal welfare friendly methods if it is to be sustainable in the future.

According to Hans Huijbers, chairman of the Southern Dutch Farmers' Union, ZLTO, some 20-40% of the pig farms in North Brabant - the Netherlands' leading intensive livestock region - will not be able to make the necessary investments to comply with animal welfare and ammonia emissions legislation that will come into force in 2013.

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The latest figures from Denmark Statistics show that the herd size has increased over the last year according to the latest Export Bulletin. The aggregate Danish stock is per 1 January 2010 12,873,000 pigs. This represents an increase of 5.6 % compared with 2009. Meanwhile, the number of breeding animals has increased by 6.6 %. Compared with 1998, the herd size was at its highest in the fourth quarter of 2007 – being 14,039,000 pigs in Denmark. To see the Export Bulletin, click here.

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For the latest international prices, click here

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