Dear readers,

Even is holiday season, we find some good news:

• EU Statistics Office show a 2% increase in pig slaughter from January to April 2024 compared to the same period last year. Also slaughter weights increased, so that the amount of pork produced increased by 3.7% to 6.95 million tons. Eastern Europe is leading the increase in slaughter volumes, with Croatia (+12.8%), Bulgaria (+12.7%), Poland (+10.9%) and Hungary (+10.3%).

Events calendar:

• The „Cambodia FoodPlus Expo” is an annual trade fair held at the Diamond Island Convention and Exhibition Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The  fair is a significant platform for manufacturers and suppliers in the food and beverage industry. Cambodia FoodPlus Expo takes place on 3 days from Friday, 02.08.2024 to Sunday, 04.08.2024.

Let’s go to the beach

            While production is increasing in the EU, some reduction plans are also coming up.

The Netherlands has been given permission by the European Commission to financially support livestock farmers who voluntarily want to leave vulnerable nature areas. The aid has a total value of 105 million euros with the aim to relocate farmers from nitrogen-sensitive natural areas. New agribusiness can be started in another area of the Netherlands or elsewhere in the EU. Pig farmers are constantly moving to the east of Europe, where land is available, crops are good and environmental activists are less noisy.

About being noisy: KFC Canada removes bacon from it’s menu and moves to halal chicken. KFC  Canada leaders noted that the change to halal chicken provides more “diverse and inclusive options”. Peoples reaction: “the loud minority [now] dictates the policies”. About 5% of Canada’s population is Muslim. We see similar evolution in some EU countries, especially in Germany, where the agriculture minister is also Muslim.

As the German ISN statistics office shows,imports of slaughter pigs to Germany increased significantly. 1.5 million pigs, 20.0 percent more animals from surrounding countries were slaughtered in Germany last year. 960,000 came from the Netherlands, this is 21.6 percent more than in the previous year and is mainly due to a Dutch cooperative contracting direct deliveries to the main German slaughterhouses. Belgium delivered around 370,000 slaughter pigs in 2023, 57.4 percent more than in the previous year. The top 10 slaughtering operations  now account for 82.5 percent of the slaughters, which corresponds to an increase of 0.5 percent compared to the previous year.

1. Tönnies remains the undisputed leader in the ranking of the largest pig slaughterers with 13.99 million slaughters, around 800,000 fewer pigs than in the previous year. Slaughter figures fell by 5.4 percent, less than the overall market. This meant that Tönnies was able to increase its market share to 31.9% (+0.5 percent). 
2. Westfleisch, with 6.5 million pigs, slaughtered almost as many animals as in the previous year, thereby increasing its market share from 13.8 to 14.8 percent. 
3. Vion is on third place with a market share of 12 percent, with 5.30 million slaughters, a significant loss compared to last year (-8.6 percent).
4. Danish Crown also recorded significantly lower slaughter numbers than in the previous year with 2.1 million pigs (-30.7 percent).

            African swine fever is still roaming around East of Europe and, sometimes, we see quite original approaches to the subject, with interesting outcomes. Preventive culling of hogs often arouse resistance from farmers themselves but  it is a procedure in accordance with applicable legal regulations and, although drastic, can ultimately protect local farmers from the greater evil of spreading the disease to a much larger area. In the Gniezno district of Poland a preventive cull was ordered for herds located within a radius of 1 km from the outbreak. According to various sources, 16 or 17 herds were designated for slaughter. 13 of them were located in the town of Ujazd, where the first outbreak broke out. After the culling of animals from four farms, a top-down decision was made to suspend the liquidation of further herds. this was a political decision, for which the deputy head of the Ministry of Agriculture is reponsible. According to the press, the person concerned did not hide the fact that he influenced the decision to stop the slaughter of the herd.

The next ASF outbreak was confirmed in Rożnowo in the Oborniki commune. The herd in which the disease appeared numbered 481 pigs. This is the fourth ASF outbreak this year in the Oborniki district and the thirteenth in the Wielkopolska province. Yes, as you can guess, the two outbreaks are in neighboring communes…

            Meanwhile, seasonal harvesting is over and farmers take the opportunity to have 2-3 weeks of holiday with the family. Usually barns are empty, piglet sales are slow and pork market is stable. Statistically,  major changes could come after 15 of August. Until then, let’s go to the beach!