Mong Reththy Group pork project to include feedmill

The Mong Reththy Group in Cambodia has plans for a pork project that also includes adding a feedmill with a projected output of 330,000 metric tons per year. In addition to boosting local pork production, the project would increase the incomes of corn, cassava and soybean farmers, while creating employment and new opportunities for production, says Kao Phal, director of the Animal Health and Production Department at the Ministry of Agriculture. Mong Reththy has set up a new company called M’s Pig ACMC in association with UK breeder ACMC, with which it has agreed a 20-year franchise deal. ACMC will deliver 600 breeding pigs for a new unit on a five-hectare site in the Prey Nop district of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, which will house a nucleus herd. Eventually this unit will supply enough commercial AC1 sows to produce 1.1 million slaughter pigs per year by 2015. The project also involves a slaughter/process plant for the pigs.

Pig Processing Updates

• Slaughterings in Denmark by Danish Crown fell 4% to 17.9 million pigs in 2007, accounting for 84% of the total Danish output. Danish Crown announced the closure of another 2 of its plants in April this year as competition for the pig supply intensifies.
• Pig processing facilities costing about US$72 million and capable of generating up to 60 000 tons of pork per year as well as 25 000 tons of red meats are planned by Russian meat importer Meatland Food Group. The 2 slaughter plants it operates at present are leased. Construction of the new plant near St Petersburg will start in the second half of 2008 for completion at the end of 2010.

Reducing Use of Water in Pork Production

Water to pork

An award-winning Australian unit has pioneered ways to reduce the use of water in pork production

Claire Penniceard operates The Pig Pen in Victoria, Australia, which is involved in a number of environmental initiatives including those on water use. “I have not been working to establish the reality or even the fine measurements climate change,” she declares. “We are all going to have to manage within some significantly changed parameters for agricultural production. I am about solutions, within whatever the final measurements of climate change turn out to be.”

Water matters a great deal when you operate in the world’s driest continent. So it should be no surprise that attempts in Australia at analyzing the inputs for agribusiness products have been particularly interested in water use.

In 2008, industry body Australian Pork Ltd will be completing a so-called life-cycle analysis or LCA of pig production, in which the usage of water will be a key point. Similar analyses have already been completed on behalf of the dairy, beef and grain industries, while Australian wine producers are participating in an international version covering grape culture.

Even now, some figures compiled in Australia indicate that producing pigs makes more effective use of scarce water resources than various other pig farming systems. A report in Australian journal WME Magazine quotes estimates from national research bureau ABARE for the financial return realized from each million litres required by an agribusiness enterprise. The figure for product value at farmgate prices per megalitre (ML) are said to range from A$400 for rice to A$700 for beef, sheep, cotton and sugar, whereas aquaculture is reckoned to earn up to A$120,000.

A report in Australian journal WME Magazine quotes estimates from national research bureau ABARE for the financial return realized from each thousand liters required by an agribusiness enterprise. The figure for earnings per ML are said to range from A$400 for rice to A$700 for beef and sheep, whereas aquaculture is reckoned to earn as much as A$120 000.

Note therefore the earnings per ML attributed by the WME report to one particular pig unit in Victoria, Australia. Trading as The Pig Pen and operated by Claire Penniceard, this is reckoned to make A$650 000 per ML of water. It is due partly to the animal, says the WME report. Monogastrics are far better than ruminants at feed efficiency. While it takes 8.5kg of grain-based feed to put a kilogram of meat on an average 65kg lamb in lot-fed situations, less than 2.5kg is needed for adding 1kg to a 100kg pig.

Other contributors to the comparatively low water requirement are listed to include the use of a highly integrated and efficient feedlot system. The reference here is to Claire Penniceard’s development of an enterprise in the Euroa area of northern Victoria over the past 7 years that now produces 28,000 pigs per year for export to Singapore from deep-bedded ecoshelters. A fundamental factor has been her desire to take sustainability to the maximum possible and to produce pigs with the smallest possible environmental footprint.

“An enterprise is not truly sustainable unless it can be repeated indefinitely,” she declared to WME editor Richard Collins. “As soon as you need top-ups from outside to keep the business going, you are no longer sustainable.”

When produced efficiently, she adds, pigs come out on top in most metrics of sustainable livestock production, from kilos of grain or feed per kilogram of meat produced to revenue per megalitre of water.According to the average rainfall recorded for the Euroa area, a block of land measuring only 48 metres x 30 metres would have been enough to receive the 4 megalitres of water that industry data suggested were needed for each of her 2 new pig production sites. Obviously this area would be far too small for producing pigs commercially, so she bought a block amounting to 250m x 250m or about 6.25 hectares. Each of these sites can harvest 34 megalitres of water per year.

Water quality is tested regularly at a laboratory in Victoriaauthorized to undertake the checks. The unit has established dual water sources from the town system and local extraction to guarantee continuity of supply and make it entirely independent of rainfall, all of which is therefore contributed to the environment. Rainwater trapped behind a dam on the property is made available to the Country Fire Association to take all it needs, a valuable social service in rural Australia.

Water and energy use at The Pig Pen are minimized by having open sheds in which a novel misting system helps to keep the pigs cool. Supplies from both water sources for the enterprise are piped directly into tanks and taken from there to the mister-cooler lines and drinkers in the piggery, leaving no part of the supply line open to contamination.

Nothing is discharged from the sites. Manure and straw become a valuable mulch, capable of regenerating the soil of 3500ha of land each year. Claire is also evaluating an unusual form of bedding in her ecoshelters. Instead of cereal straw, she has tried a waste product from wine growing for possible use in deep-litter systems. It is known as grape marc and consists of the residue of skins and seeds left after grapes are pressed for wine. Although problematic to wine growers, it is thought in Australia to have high promise as an increasingly important bedding material. In a country that has been hit by successive droughts, conventional straw has joined water in becoming a resource that is less available and more expensive.

China is the Place for Profit in the Pig Industry

Intensive, western-style pig production units in China are enjoying enhanced levels of profit despite seeing a significant rise in their input costs.

In round figures, there are 1 billion pigs on our planet. About half of them are located in China. Only 5 years ago, China was looking to become a pig exporting nation. Now in 2008 it has become a major importer. What are the economics and factors that have driven these major changes?

Like most countries, China now suffers inflation pressures derived from commodity-related issues, particularly in food and energy supply. The overall annual inflation rate in China rose in 2006 to 4%, well above the then benchmark 3.4%, and it continued to rise so it was at 5.9% in November 2007 and reached 8.5% by March and April 2008. Rising feed prices were the main contributor to this, up by 23% from a year earlier, while non-food prices rose only 1.6% in this period. Within the food price rises, vegetables accounted for 22% and grains (rice) another 6%, but pigmeat (largely pork) was responsible for 49%.

Pork is the number one meat of cultural choice for Han Chinese, regularly accounting for 70% or more of the meat products eaten. Between 85-90% of the pig carcasses produced are consumed as freshly slaughtered and butchered cuts, prepared in a wide range of recipes. Many of these chosen cuts and dishes confer specific meanings to the meal, such as the consumption of pig trotters prior to a journey and of pig-head skin soup for a celebration.

Even with the country’s official policy of one child per family, the further growth of the population (already over 1.3 billion people) will combine with the urbanization of many more meat consumers in China to further increase this strong demand for fresh pork. Population growth alone would account for a projected pork demand increase of 4% per year. The urban-enhanced incomes would account for a further 3%. In other words, current trends would allow for pork consumption in China to grow at an annual average rate of 7%.

Since 2005, however, there have been major problems in the internal Chinese pork supply to meet this demand. Recent reductions in pork supply have been caused by a series of issues affecting pig production in China. Farmers in all countries tend to be reluctant to discuss their actual costs of production, farm-gate prices and other issues. Chinese farmers are no exception, therefore the analysis of typical figures for production values may often be made only by central administrators.

The federal Ministry of Agriculture in China publishes freely-available figures for pig farm-gate prices, weaner piglet prices and retail prices (these can be found at website www.agri.com.cn). Its month-by-month charts are based on figures supplied by provincial authorities and have been regularly used by internal experts and also outside bodies when discussing pork supply and prices in China. Chinese pig experts also like to use a trend line based on the pig price divided by the grain price as a rough measure of profitability.

Some problems can occur with interpretation of these basic figures. One is the fact that they are averaged across the entire Chinese industry, which is not homogeneous. Small pig farms still form a large sector, probably 50-60% of production. But the pig breeding and farming of western-style pigs and intensive pig farming methods has been encouraged and has dramatically increased across China in the past 10 years. It has risen from only 20% of total national production in 2000 to over 40% now.

The costs and supply issues for each sector—backyard, family or intensive—vary widely. Besides these variations among types of pig production, there is considerable variation around different parts of China in prices along the pork chain. The pig industry in the prosperous south-east provinces around Guangzhou, and the mid-eastern provinces around Shanghai, has a large western-style farm structure with higher prices all along the pork chain. Pig production in other provinces is generally of a lower input and price structure, with lower technical standards, particularly in the north-east. Any agriculture ministry figures, such as for farm-gate price, could therefore differ widely from the reality for a particular commercial pig farm situation.

Local consumer sources supply some comparison data for intensive pig and pork prices across south-eastern China in the past few years. Figure 2 compares the monthly figures given in the Ministry of Agriculture website since 2000 to ones from these other sporadic sources. This chart indicates that the ministry’s overall consolidated reports have somewhat underestimated the farm-gate prices in the south-east China region in recent years, particularly in the more recent, rising-demand situation.

A view of pig costs

Cost of production estimates for the same period obtained from local producer sources suggest that producing each kilogram of finisher pig in eastern China has increased from RMB7 in 2006 to a current RMB10. Of course, most of the rise is due to increased cereal feed costs. However, the rate of increase of pig production costs has not been as fast as for farm-gate prices, which are being pushed higher by the macro-factors of growing demand and lower supplies. This has meant that some pig units have achieved outstanding profit levels, even up to the equivalent of US$100 per pig marketed.

So it is really a great time to be an active major pig producer in China, unlike the situation in many other parts of the world at present. Note also that a typical production cost per kilogram in China can often be only half the amount found in Europe or the USA because of less expensive labor and lower charges for finance and taxation.

It should be made clear these prices and costs refer to the intensive, western-style farming sector. There are also over 40 local pig breeds in China, supplying a wide range of other pigmeat products. Any significant meat retail outlet in China will stock hams derived from Jinhua pigs alongside whole roast pigs of small Xiang breeds and the popular fatty pork obtained from various local breeds such as the Su Tai. While each of these products has a specific price structure, the overall level of their retail prices also is increasing rapidly. For example, the chi taw or whole pig-head skin product has increased from RMB10 to RMB15 in the past year.

A huge number of small pig farms still remain, now chiefly supplying local rural markets. Each of these rural backyarders typically sells only 5-10 pigs per year, usually earning RMB80-100 per pig. These comparatively low farm-gate prices are offset for the farmer and his family by the negligible feed costs (these pigs are fed waste products) and the strong asset protection provided by these livestock.

Pig Feeds to Use Against Molds

Feed strategies against molds
Possible pig feeding actions to deal with the mycotoxins in feed grains that are now suspected of damaging pigs’ immune systems as well as causing problems of low feed intake and retarded growth.

Clinical signs of mycotoxicosis in pigs and other farm animals represent only the tip of the iceberg regarding pig health and performance effects due to mycotoxins, warned Professor Johanna Fink-Gremmels from the veterinary faculty at Utrecht University, Netherlands.

Veterinary problems in a 250-sow Norwegian herd have demonstrated the destructive power of toxins from mouldy feed grains. In this case the answer took the form of a dietary treatment. Other possible solutions for pig units to deal with feed contamination issues were outlined recently to an international gathering of scientists specialised in mycotoxin control.

For a variety of reasons, the meeting heard, moulds and their toxic products are affecting an increasing quantity of feed ingredients worldwide. An assessment 2 years ago that mycotoxins could be found in at least 25% of all grains harvested seems now to be an under-estimate. Climate is thought to be one of the factors responsible, along with changes in farming practices and the growing of susceptible crops.

Pig producers in particular should be wary of a possible contamination in the feed diets they use. Speakers at the 3rd World Mycotoxin Forum, which took place at the end of last year in the Netherlands, were agreed that pigs are the most sensitive of the farm animal species in this respect. Five out of the 300 or more known types of mould toxin are regarded as most relevant to agriculture; the pig is rated first on sensitivity for each of them.

That view has been reinforced by scientific advice given to the European Union’s administrators by independent food safety agency EFSA, the forum was told. Referring to major toxins from the globally important fungal genus called Fusarium, it advised that pigs were significantly more sensitive than poultry or cattle to the effects of deoxynivalenol (usually abbreviated as DON) and zearalenone (ZON). Much the same was true for other Fusarium toxins known as fumonisins, for ochratoxin A (OTA) from an Aspergillus fungus and for alkaloids from ergot.

Clinical signs of illness are observed whenever any of these exceeds a threshold level in the pig’s diet. For example, the vomiting caused by DON has given it the common name of vomitoxin, but pigswill start to refuse feed and show retarded growth once its presence goes above 5-10 parts per million. ZON was described to the forum as the classic textbook model of how oestrogen receptors work. It has oestrogenic (hormonal) effects on puberty and fertility when present at more than 1-3ppm. OTA can give rise to kidney damage with a dietary level of just 200 parts per billion. Typically a European problem from contaminated wheat or barley, at higher concentrations this ochratoxin is blamed for a so-called porcine nephropathy in which the kidneys become shrunken and discoloured as well as losing their function.

One difficulty with any discussion of clinical signs and threshold levels, however, is that both sensitivity and effect are influenced by the age or production stage of the pig. Nursery pigs will be far more sensitive than a gestating or lactating sow for the impact of a Fusarium mycotoxin on their appetite, possibly because the sows have an instinctive drive to keep eating in order to fuel the development of their unborn piglets or their milk production after farrowing. Effects can also be delayed, such as the subsequent stillbirths from sows consuming moldy feed in pregnancy or the disrupted endocrine balance in gilts around puberty due to their consumption of zearalenone at an earlier stage.

See the rest of this article: Pig Feeds

When the Pig Feed Fails

Bridging in feed silos is identified as a difficulty that has started to appear more often on US grow-finish units, interrupting the supply of pig feeds to pens.

Nebraska research in the USA has identified a particular risk to the daily weight gain of growing pigs from even quite short interruptions in the feed supply from a bulk storage bin.

A research report published in the USA suggests that pig feeds are seeing shortages that are an increasing problem on American nursery and grow-finish facilities. Referring to the shortages as out-of-feed events, it says some of them are due to the mechanical failures suffered occasionally by any system for distributing pig feeds to pens. But it also points to additional disruptions due to human error affecting a delivery into the bulk storage silo and to the age-old difficulty of materials becoming bridged or stuck inside a bin so they do not flow to the out-take conveyor as desired.

More instances of bridging are being reported, the annual Swine Report from the University of Nebraska comments, as producers continue to reduce the fineness of grind for their complete feed diets in order to improve conversion. In addition to the obvious implications for pigs’ potential growth, the absences of feed resulting from bridging and other factors are a known cause of ulcers in pigs and are suspected of having links to an increased incidence of the haemorrhagic bowel syndrome and ileitis.

But the investigators in Nebraska wanted to check particularly on the longer-term consequences for growth performance from feed breaks on a unit with nursery and grow-finish places. Their earlier work, described in the university’s 2006 Swine Report, had found indications that the impact of an out-of-feed event could be greater for the growing pig than for one in the finishing phase of production. Testing in that instance had been of a period of 20 hours without feed on a random day in each week of a 16-week trial. Virtually all of the reduction in weight gain recorded for the full trial related to the first 8 weeks.

Subsequently, the examination has been widened to cover the more likely scenario in practice, involving temporary interruptions of the pig feed supply on varying occasions in their growing and finishing stages. The out-of-feed events were again staged to occur between midday and 08:00 the next day. Starting 37 days after weaning at 14-21 days old and extending for another 16 weeks, experimental groups had their feeder closed for these 20 hours up to 3 times every 2 weeks.

Once more, it seemed that the sensitivity of the pigs to intervals without feed was age-related. A linear relationship between feeder closures and growth response was detected only in the first 8 weeks of the trial. During that period, daily gain decreased in line with the increasing number of occasions on which feed supplies had been interrupted. Afterwards, however, growth showed no link to the number of out-of-feed events. Measurements across the full duration of the trial did not establish any effect on feed conversion or within-pen variability.

A more revealing pattern appeared when the researchers looked at feed intake patterns after feed supplies had been restored. Clues in this direction had already been seen in the 2006 work. Then, pigs missing feed on a random day each week increased their intakes by 14% in the first 24 hours following restoration during the first 8 weeks of the trial. But this increase soared to 42% in the second 8-weeks period. The testing described by the 2007 Nebraska Swine Report found that in the first 8 weeks even the most affected pigs (those having 2-3 intervals without feed every 2 weeks) responded by eating just 11-18% more in the next 24 hours. The following 8 weeks saw the equivalent groups adding 22-28% to their daily feed intake.

So the take-home message must be that you cannot expect growing pigs to compensate as much as finishing-stage animals for any temporary interruption in their feed supply. Speculation offered by the Nebraska team focuses on the capacity of the pig for taking in more feed. Perhaps the younger animal’s normal appetite is close to the maximum it can eat at any one time. As it ages, on the other hand, intake comes under the influence of a variety of factors and may be increased quite strongly in the short term to compensate for a previous feed-free period.

The scale of the potential impact at growing-pig level remains to be determined, however. The team observes that its out-of-feed events were rather regular for duration and therefore were possibly less influential than a sequence varying in length. Moreover, the timing of the events through the afternoon and at night did not correspond to an accepted view of pigs’ normal eating behaviour beginning around 06:00 and peaking at 14:00. On this basis, the experimental groups may have eaten before the feed break happened so that their response to it was less than if it had occurred, say, in the morning hours.

Nevertheless, there was a clear bottom-line result from the Nebraska testing. Fail to have feed in the bin or to extract it when required, this has indicated, and you will be risking a major drop in growth. Pigs in the trial that had an uninterrupted access to feed gained approximately 840 grams weight per day over the initial 56 days, in growing from about 18kg to 65kg liveweight. Those missing 3 feeding opportunities each 2 weeks over the same period managed only about 754g/day.

They were unable to eat enough to make up for lost ground once the feed supply was resumed.

When Pig Feed Prices Rise

The prices of pig feeds rise.

Continuing the search for possible responses by pig producers internationally to the effects of rising feed prices on their production costs.

What can producers do when pig feed prices rise? One of the first actions could be to look again at the feed ingredients and materials fed to their pigs.

Be aware that the case for using feed additives becomes even stronger whenever the cost of feeds increases, says Murray Hyden at ingredients supplier Agil, in an exclusive conversation for this issue of Pig International.

For example, he says, acidifiers show major benefits in terms of optimising gut health to provide digestive conditions that approach the pig’s genetic potential, improving feed efficiency and reducing mortality. They are also important in pig feeds that have a high buffering capacity, such as those used in lactation. A key application of acidifiers is to minimise bacterial numbers in the feed, lowering the risk of pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella and escherichia entering the animal.

“Protected acidifiers with fructo-oligosaccharides are especially important to young animals that have not achieved full immunocompetence, particularly weaned piglets up to 9 weeks old or animals recovering from antibiotic therapy,” he commented when interviewed at Agil’s head office in the UK. “They have a direct impact in the animal intestine. Their effect is to optimise the gut microflora and protect mucosal linings, while providing a healthy gut environment.”

More efficient pig feeding is vitally important at a time of high feed costs, he observes. All pig rations should contain antioxidants to preserve fats and oils, maintain palatability and generally maintain feed intake. Remember, too, how feed conversion rates can be damaged by the presence of mould factors in the diet. Including mycotoxin binders can reduce the severity of mycotoxicoses or even their occurrence and thereby safeguard both swine breeding and finishing performance.

“Other additives to bear in mind are the pellet binders included in cubed or pelleted feed. They have an important role to play in controlling feed costs on the pig unit, because they reduce losses due to dust or fine particles on the farm as well as at the feedmill and during transportation. Even a 1% reduction in losses from these so-called fines is valuable. It means saving one ton of feed in every 100 tons handled. I know this is obvious, but people forget!”

No pig farm is perfect, he adds. There are always opportunities to improve. Addressing any of the points mentioned will make improvements in feed efficiency that are more valuable than ever under today’s market conditions.