Dear readers,

First the good news regarding our industry:

• According to an official statement from Axiom: „following several months of discussions, the Choice Genetics and Axiom have decided to enter into exclusive negotiations with a view to Choice Genetics transferring its majority stakes in Choice Genetics France, Poland and Brazil to Axiom. Through this consolidation, the Axiom Group will considerably strengthen its international footprint, while confirming its leading position in the French market. It will also enable the deployment of significant synergies, both in R&D and in production, logistics and support for user breeders.”
• USDA is providing a combined $4 million in grants that will be used to support efforts by Oklahoma State University researchers on several ongoing projects, many of them related to the pig industry.
• Pilgrim’s UK  Kings Lynn factory has delivered a transformation programme over the last 24 months to improve yields, efficiency and reduce waste. Part of a £5-million investment, the site has invested £800,000 in automation to pack single or combi packs through one system with the aim to speed up packaging lines by 12% to produce over 3 million packs per week. The Kings Lynn site is also investing an additional £600,000 to drive greenhouse gas and energy reduction across the site
• China imported 130,000 MT of pork in June,  up 4.5% from June 2022. Through the first half of 2023, China imported 940,000 MT of pork, up 16.5% from the same period last year.

Some fun: according to a digital news platform from Singapore, China Piggery theme park in the Zhejiang province offers a ‘pig-view’ hotel room for S$1,660/night, guests can bring home 1 pig after checking out. The breed of pig in question is  nicknamed the panda pig after its black skin and hair at its head and rump. The rooms are located on the second floor, overlooking the piggery. They are separated from the piggery via a glass pane, which offers guests unbridled view of the panda pigs as they „eat, poop, and sleep”. The rooms are also completely sealed off, which prevents smells from permeating into the room. Guests can choose to take home either one pig or one year’s worth of pork supply after checking out. Each pig is apparently worth about S$1,270 (RMB6,800), weighs 75kg, and is at least a year old. The manager added that there are currently two ‘pig-view’ rooms for rent — one for families, and another for couples. Newer say that you already tried everything to sell your pigs!

Events calendar:

• The Libramont agricultural, forestry and agri-food fair is a gigantic open-air exhibition. It is a showcase of rurality: machinery, livestock, forestry, food processing, horticulture, R&D, education, culture. It takes place in Libramont, Belgium, between 28-31 of July.

Self control

According to preliminary data from the Netherlands Business Agency (RVO), a total of around 3.55 million pigs from the Netherlands were sold to other European Member States in the 1st half of 2023; 27,300 animals or 0.8% more than in the first half of 2022. The export of fattening pigs increased by a total of 29,700 animals or 6.8% to 463,800 head. Exports to Germany increased considerably, by almost 45%, to 398,300 pigs, many of these Dutch animals ended up in North Rhine-Westphalia. Other EU countries, including Belgium, Poland and Spain, received significantly fewer slaughter pigs from the Netherlands. This may be the reason why Vion Netherlands increased its purchasing price for the pigs, while everyone else on the Dutch market stood stil.

The export of piglets  increased by about 16,000 animals or 0.6%, to 2.88 million head. Germany was also the most important customer, with almost 1.45 million piglets, while they exported significantly fewer piglets to Belgium, Poland and Italy than the previous year. However, exports to Spain increased by 11%, to more than 1 million. In addition, sales to Romania increased to 82,300 animals.

Spain is still restocking after the severe PRRS episode, while Romania is devastated by ASF. But not only Europe is struggling with the ASF, and the solution of a vaccine seems to be far again…

A recombined African Swine Fever virus identified in China may prove to be more difficult to detect and less controllable through vaccination. The Swine Health Information Center reports evidence of a recombination of African Swine Fever genotype 1 and genotype 2 viruses. Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg says there’s no cross protection between the genotypes so the issue of our vaccinations being effective against genotype 2 when there’s a recombination of 1 and 2 is still a major question, this recombination could result in a virus that’s as transmissible as genotype 2 while being less virulent and more difficult to detect than would be genotype 2 by itself.

In the ASF affected countries the market price is again going down. These countries are also more affected by the inflation and the reduced consumption. The farmers are either afraid to be caught by the disease and selling pigs even below optimum slaughter weight. either having heavy pigs, coming out from a movement restriction period. Desperate sells reduce the price for the whole industry in this countries. We need more self-control!

European pig and piglet prices: HW= Hot weight; L= live weight;

COUNTRY	PIG(EUR)	TREND	PIGLET(EUR)	TREND	OBSERVATION
GERMANY	2,50 HW		93/25 kg
NETHERLANDS	2,26-2,54 HW		79/25 kg
BELGIUM	1,83 L		77/20 kg
DANEMARK	1,85 HW		93/25 kg
FRANCE	2,353 L
ITALY	1,91 L- 115 kg, 2,23 L-160kg,DOC		135/30 kg
SPAIN	2,02-2,05 HW		95-105/20kg
PORTUGAL	2,8 HW
AUSTRIA	2,44 HW		103 /25 kg
POLAND	1,75-2,14 L		85-136/20-30 kg		Partner info; no quotation
CROATIA	2,10-2,8 HW		110-123/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
SERBIA	2,0-2,05 L		115-131/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
CZECH R.	2,48 – 2,52 HW		82-88/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
SLOVAKIA	1,98 -2,03 L		110-118/25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
HUNGARY	1,96 – 2,11 L		110-118/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
ROMANIA	2 – 2,1 L		110-118/25kg		Partner info; no quotation