US swine inventories in decline

US swine inventories in nearly all classifications are on the decline, the US Department of Agriculture’s December Hogs and Pigs report shows, say Iowa State University economists John Lawrence and Shane Ellis.

Total hog and pig numbers declined 2.2% to 66.7 million head. The inventory of breeding swine declined 2.4% to 6.1 million head, while market hog numbers were down 2.1% from last year at 60.6 million head.

In Iowa, market hog numbers were up 2.2% at 18.7 million head while sow numbers declined a percent to 1.1 million head. The decreased pig crop in the fourth quarter of 2008 and reduced imports from Canada have driven feeder pig inventories down more than 5%. With farrowing intentions down in the next six months, the retraction of the industry continues, say Lawrence and Ellis.

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.

Contraction in EU pig herd unprecedented

Pig census data published for 2008 for 15 European Union (EU) member states, representing 90% of the market, show that total pig numbers at the early-summer count were down nearly 6% compared with 2007, to 143.4 million head. Even more surprising is an 8% fall in the number of in-pig sows to 9.1 million, with the most significant breeding herd contraction in Spain, Poland and Germany.

The decline in pig numbers had little impact on total EU pig meat production in the first half of 2008, but from the third quarter, tighter supplies began to be reflected in higher pig prices. In the final quarter of the year, EU production could be down by as much as 5% compared with the same three months in 2007.

In a number of member states, where up until now production has been above year-earlier levels, a fall in availability is forecast. In Denmark, gross indigenous production (GIP) is forecast to be down 10% compared with output in the fourth quarter of 2007. In Germany and Spain, GIP is forecast to be down 2 and 4%, respectively. In Poland, 19% fewer pigs are forecast to be available for slaughter or live export than in the same quarter a year ago.

A particularly sharp fall in production is anticipated in the UK, Denmark, Poland, and other eastern European countries. In the EU as a whole, production could be down around 5% in the first half of 2009. Barring unforeseen circumstances, EU pig prices should continue to increase up until summer 2009.

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.