Marketing News

Pig Farmer to Film Maker

Calling all pig farmers who fancy their 15 minutes of fame! The Pigs Are Worth It! campaign is looking for volunteers from across the country to be presenters for a documentary-style short film on the feed price crisis and how the pig industry has responded. Each farmer will be provided with a film crew and director for the day plus a script outline.  The idea is to produce four to six regional mini films and then edit these together to produce one national film. Each presenter will be required to talk about the issues the pig industry faces on camera and film on his or her farm plus interview other producers, members of the public and cover any particular local stories in their area. When finished the aim is to get the films played on local and national media as well as sell in the human interest story around the making of the films to the media to create further awareness of the campaign. Filming is due late June/early July. If you are interested in taking part or have any further questions please contact: Ekta Sopal  on 0207 861 3154/ esopal@goodrelations.co.uk or Anna Terrell on 0207 861 3149/ aterrell@goodrelations.co.uk

Stewart Houston v Dolly Parton!

An exchange in parliament this week on the state of the British pig industry resulted in an honourable mention for BPEX and NPA Chairman Stewart Houston. The Minister for the South East, Jonathan Shaw, referring to Stand By Your Ham suggested Stewart should not give up the day job! To see the full transcript click here.

Your Country Needs You!

Dominic Arkwright looked at the condition of British farming in a time of global food shortages and rising prices. He heard from two farmers who are struggling and one who is prospering and discusses the significance of farming with green advisor Zac Goldsmith. Click here for more.

Alex James is a Winner

Talking about the Welfare and Choice Consumer Survey results. To date media coverage has resulted in £1.8m. From 2 TV interviews and 47 radio, 5 national print and 29 regional print pieces – that’s 80.1 million opportunities to see or hear!  A result of all the media attention is that independent journalists have been writing their own articles supporting the industry in general, not necessarily our campaign. For example, The Sunday Telegraph last week, featured ‘Bangers and Cash’ by Lucas Hollweg in his column ‘Word of Mouth’.

Pork Watch

The figures this month show, for the first time, Aldi is on the radar with 60% of their pork being British.

Knowledge Transfer

Tip of the Week - Summer Shades

Recently spotted on an outdoor unit were some simple but effective shades. They were made from thick galebreaker which was attached to 4 wooden stakes with bungee ropes, providing an area of shade beneath. Have your pigs got enough shade? Don’t forget to make use of shades in yard systems as well to avoid heat stress and production losses in your sows this summer.

BPEX AI Standard

The BPEX AI Standard is based on agreed Best Practice principles and procedures that are followed by the AI centres. Its introduction further extended the chain of assurance to include AI to give producers confidence that the product arriving on their farm was produced to a consistently high standard. Your views, as a levy payer and purchaser of AI, are being sought on the value of the AI Standard to date and on its future operation and funding.  We would be grateful if you would complete a brief questionnaire and return to Angela Cliff, BPEX AI Programme Manager.

Answers will remain anonymous and will be collated for feedback to the Technical AI Group, breeding companies and the industry. Please return questionnaires by Tuesday 17^th June to Angela Cliff: angela.cliff@bpex.org.uk or by post: Angela Cliff, BPEX Ltd, PO Box 44, Snowdon Drive, Milton Keynes, MK6 1AX.

BPEX Workshops

Over the past couple of years the BPEX KT Team has run a wide range of well-attended workshops across the country. Summaries of all of these interactive workshops are now available on the BPEX website, with handout packs/relevant material available to download in most cases. If a group of you in the same area are interested in any of these workshops then the KT Team will be happy to run it. If you have different requirements the workshops can be customised to your needs, or new ones can be developed. For further details click here or email: kt@bpex.org.uk.

National News

Industry Honour up for Grabs

The pig industry is in crisis and there are many people out there going above and beyond the call of duty to fight for its survival. Most of those have been working tirelessly for the industry over many years and it is those who are now being sought as the hunt for this year’s recipient of the industry’s most prestigious award gets under way. The David Black Award was first presented in 1960 and has since been won by people from a wide range of disciplines including producers, consultants and scientists.

Once the nominations are in, a panel of independent judges, chaired by BPEX Chief Executive Mick Sloyan, will select the winner.

The winner will receive their award at an industry breakfast this autumn held in the House of Lords.

Nomination forms can be downloaded from the BPEX website, www.bpex.org.uk, or by telephoning Marian Robertson on 01908 844368.

The Fact of the Matter

Getting a quart into a pint pot is never easy but the latest edition of A Pocketful of Meat Facts achieves just that.  It shows retailers sold 3% more British beef last year compared with 2006 and 4% less imported beef. On the bacon front, the UK imported 6% more bacon last year, but consumed 4% less in total.

The 2008 edition of A Pocketful of Meat Facts, has just been published by the Economics team at AHDB meat services. Now in its 14^th year, this pocket-sized reference book is packed with facts to give everyone in the industry an overview of key statistics for cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry - including livestock numbers, market prices, abattoir throughputs, consumption, trade, and also key EU meat statistics. 

It is available to customers in the UK for £12 (overseas £15); customers ordering 10 or more copies will receive a 10 per cent discount.  To order, email jayne.dines@ahdbms.org.uk, or phone 01908 844396.  The book is part of a wide range of publications and services from Economics. For details, prices and an order form see www.mlceconomics.org.uk/publications.htm.

Welfare at Slaughter

A series of inspections evaluating the control of animal welfare at slaughter in Denmark, France, UK, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Spain and the Netherlands has been carried out. The report on the inspections has now been published and for further information click here.

Porcofram Sold

BOCM Pauls has sold Porcofram Marketing to Thames Valley Cambac. Thames Valley will now handle over 20 percent of available British pigs.

Thames Valley Cambac's increased critical mass in a marketing sector that is reducing in size will enable the group to build on its relationships with processor customers for the benefit of its producer members, said Thames Valley Cambac chairman, producer Charles Allen.

BOCM Pauls will keep Porcofram’s marketing software, which supports over 20 percent of all pigs marketed in Britain.

New Pig Vet President

The new man at the helm of the Pig Veterinary Society is Derek Armstrong. Derek, 48, took over from Jill Thomson, at the Spring Meeting of the PVS, in Edinburgh.

Derek, who is married to Susan, qualified in Dublin in 1983 and gained a wealth of experience in veterinary research and practice in Ireland and New Zealand. He is currently the BPEX advisor on veterinary matters.

He thanked outgoing President Jill Thomson for all her hard work in a difficult year for the industry, marked by foot-and-mouth disease and soaring feed costs. “It is good to see that her call for a new initiative, focused on eradicating common production diseases is now being seriously taken up by the industry. This initiative will continue to be a key priority for PVS in the coming year.

“The pig industry is in crisis and PVS members have a key role to play in turning things around. Vets are trusted advisors at farm level and better health to improve performance is vital part in reducing costs of production. e benefits to pigs and their farmers and vets.”

Join BPHS

Have you joined the British Pig Health Scheme yet? The new one starts on July 1. It provides members, their vets, abattoirs and funding partners with regular, objective and detailed post-mortem health assessments from pigs submitted to 14 specialist pig abattoirs in England. To date the BPHS team of specialist pig vets have reported on more than 12,000 consignments of pigs.

A survey of members found all farmers surveyed discussed the BPHS reports with their vets when reviewing pig health and performance. More than 60% of them and 80% of vets have been taking action on farms to tackle health issues using information from their reports.

You can find our more about the scheme by logging onto www.bpex.org.uk or calling 01463 233184. There is also a DVD available explaining how the scheme works, which can be obtained by calling 01908 844734.

NADIS Latest – Small Pigs

Reports for NADIS regularly highlight the issue of underweight pigs born, which are then highly vulnerable to early death.

Whilst the larger the litter, the smaller (lighter) the average pig weight, individual piglet weight is largely determined by the size of the placenta on which it feeds.

Producers should be aware that each individual placenta grows in advance of the piglet it supports and placental growth is virtually complete by 60-70 days gestation.  Therefore, if small piglets are being produced, stockmen should look at nutrition of the sow in early pregnancy to improve placental growth and ultimately boost piglet weight.  (Feed levels will have to increase in the last 3 weeks of gestation to take advantage of this placental growth. Failure to do this is likely to result in larger bodied pigs with poor flesh cover.)

International News

Exports Latest

Click here for the latest export report

Chinese Earthquake Update

China has more than doubled its estimate for pig losses attributable to the Sichuan earthquake, from 1.52 million head to 3.658 million head, including 184,500 sows. Analysts now expect 2008 provincial pork production to drop approximately 9% (700,000 metric tons) from 2007 levels, and live hog inventories to decline by 10 million head. Such a loss would equal 1.6% of national pork production, and 2.2% of national pig inventories 

US Pork Exports

U.S. pork exports in April reached 175,640 metric tons ($391.5 million) in April, smashing the previous one-month record of 156,959 metric tons set in February, the U.S. Meat Export Federation said.

More impressive, USMEF says, is the comparison of the first four months of 2008 versus the same period last year. Total pork exports for 2008 are up 52 percent over the prior year, equalling 629,682 metric tons valued at $1.4 billion.

"U.S. pork has set export records for 16 consecutive years, and there's no sign that the world's appetite for U.S. pork is slackening one bit," Erin Daley, manager of research and analysis for USMEF, said in a statement.

International Prices

Click here for the latest international prices