Dear readers,

Let’s see some good news from the swine industry:

• While in Europe is pushing the fake meat products, Lidl US announced it is revamping its meat department to better attract American customers, enhancing its variety and merchandising of meat and poultry products and introduce a private label for packaged meats.
• Taiwan’s customs officials issued a fine of close to 8000 € to a traveler trying to bring a lunch box containing pork into the country. The Indonesian national arrived from Hong Kong on April 30 and was sniffed out by a quarantine dog.

Events calendar:

• The world’s largest pork industry-specific trade show brings together pork producers and industry professionals from around the world for two days of education, innovation and networking between Wednesday,5-th of June and Thursday, 6 of June, 2024, at Iowa State Fairgrounds, Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.
• The 27th International Pig Veterinary Society Congress as a joint event together with the 15th European Symposium of Porcine Health Management are held in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany, between 04th-07th of June, 2024. Together this will be the world’s greatest and most prestigious event for the global pig community.

Your Decision

Why is so important to properly control also the passenger flow, as we see the Taiwanese example?

An outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) occurred on May 21 on a farm with 1,577 susceptible animals in Cheorwon, Gangwon-do, South Korea. This is the first outbreak of the disease reported to the World Organization for Animal Health in South Korea since January and  there are 65 pig farms within the quarantine zone and 90 pig farms with an epidemiological relation.

To remain in Aasia: in the entire Bac Kan province of Vietnam, only 3 communes have declared the end of the ASF epidemic and only 1 commune has not had a new case for 21 days out of a total of 75 communes with the epidemic. As a consequence, in many villages, there are no longer pig-farming households, and a number of programs and projects supporting pig farming under national target programs have also had to be temporarily suspended.

An issue that many people are concerned: on some social networking groups, traders offer buying sick or dead pigs, regardless of the area. Besides, while the epidemic is developing very complicatedly, the situation of throwing dead pig carcasses into rivers, streams, and the environment still occurs.

Scandinavien Farm Invests has gone bankrupt in China. Within a few years it lost more than 76 million euros, as one of the owners, the Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU), announced in a press release. Their capacity was 15,000 sows, producing 60,000 breeding animals and 360,000 slaughter pigs per year. Even more, due to an outbreak of ASF, the entire pig herd had to be culled. Biosecurity is still relative in many Asian countries.

In Europe, Germany imported more pigs again in the first four months of this year, a clear consequence of the declining number of pigs in German stables. According to the latest figures, a total of 9 percent more pigs were imported in 2023 than in 2022 and, in the first four months of this year, imported volumes increased by another 11% compared to the same period last year. Also, Germany imports the vast majority of its piglets, mainly from Denmark and the Netherlands, with the demand for breeding animals and fattening pigs is also increasing. Imports from Denmark increased 21 % between January and April 2024 compared to the first four months of 2023. Imports from the Netherlands increased by 2 percent.

My dear readers, I avoid to express political opinions. However, we can see the direction in witch our industry is pushed lately in several countries.

Taking in consideration the evolution of ASF in the East European countries, I see the need for clearer and stricter rules, especially in the disposal of the dead animals, livestock movement and hygiene of the vehicles.

On the other hand, we see the increasing pressure of some political decision makers on our industry. We are forced to make radical changes in our farms, and, even more, in our lifestyle. And this decisions are rarely supported by real research; it is many times a loud minority, trying to impose their vision on us.

Now we also have something to say! We have European Parliamentary elections, make your choice, it’s your decision!

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

COUNTRY	PIG(EUR)	TREND	PIGLET(EUR)	TREND	OBSERVATION
GERMANY	2,20 HW		85/25 kg
NETHERLANDS	1,97-2,22 HW		72/25 kg
BELGIUM	1,60 L		67/20 kg
DANEMARK	1,61-1,68 HW		93/30 kg
FRANCE	2,03 HW
ITALY	1,53 L 115kg, 1,93 L 160kg,		143,7/30 kg
SPAIN	1,75 – 1,81 L		89-95/20kg
PORTUGAL	2,53 HW
AUSTRIA	2,16 HW		109/31 kg
POLAND	1,52 – 1,87 L		94-137/20-30 kg		Partner info; no quotation
CROATIA	2,0 – 2,1 HW		106-115/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
SERBIA	2-2,1 L		120-130/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
CZECH R.	2,13 – 2,17 HW		70-76/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
SLOVAKIA	1,7 -1,75 L		107-113/25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
HUNGARY	1,75 – 1,87 L		107-113/25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
ROMANIA	1,61 – 1,81 L		107-117/25 kg		Partner info; no quotation