World Hog news:

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Reduced Response to Pneumonia Vaccination
DENMARK - N. Steenhard of the University of Copenhagen and co-authors report that ascaris (parasitic worm) infestation reduces the response of pigs to vaccination against Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (enzootic pneumonia) as well as subsequent challenge infection. Their paper is published in the journal, Vaccine.



Since their first introduction more than a century ago, vaccines have become one of the most cost-effective tools to prevent and manage infectious diseases in human and animal populations. It is vital to understand the possible mechanisms that may impair optimal vaccine efficacy.

The hypothesis posed in this study from Denmark was that a concurrent Ascaris suum infection of pigs vaccinated with a Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (Mh) vaccine would modulate the protective immune response to a subsequent challenge infection.

Four groups of pigs were either (1) untreated (group C), (2) vaccinated against Mh 3 weeks after the start of the study (group V), (3) given a trickle infection with A. suum throughout the study (group A), or (4) given a trickle infection with A. suum and vaccinated against Mh (group AV).

All pigs were subsequently inoculated with live Mh bacteria four weeks after the Mh vaccination and necropsied after another four weeks.

All pigs in group V sero-converted three weeks after vaccination (100 per cent), as opposed to only 33 per cent of group AV pigs that were Mh-vaccinated and given A. suum. At the end of the study, only 78 per cent of pigs in group AV had sero-converted.

Pigs in group AV had a higher mean percentage of lung pathology and the variation was significantly higher in these pigs compared to pigs in group V. The pattern of gene expression in the lungs and draining lymph nodes indicated a local Th2-skewed response induced by A. suum.

The authors say their study indicates that A. suum significantly compromised the effect of Mh vaccination. The impact of reduced vaccine efficacy caused by a common gastrointestinal helminth emphasises the importance of parasite control.

More focus should be put into this area of research to outline the practical consequences of this interaction, and to be able to predict, prevent and correct negative interactions, they concluded.

Reference
Steenhard N.R., G. Jungersen, B. Kokotovic, E. Beshah, H.D. Dawson, J.F. Urban Jr, A. Roepstorff and S.M. Thamsborg. 2009. Ascaris suum infection negatively affects the response to a Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae vaccination and subsequent challenge infection in pigs. Vaccine. 27(37): 5161-5169.

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Traders Warn of Continuous Rise in Pork Prices
HONG KONG - Pork retailers are under increasing pressure to raise prices as the surge in wholesale prices shows no signs of abating.



Two vendors said they paid about 10 per cent more for carcasses in the past month, with the price increasing from HK$990 per 100 catties (approx 50kg) in the summer to HK$1,100 over the past few weeks.

Wholesale prices are expected to rise by another 10 to 20 per cent, a pork traders' association has warned.

The warning came as Agricultural Ministry officials in Beijing said they are aware of increases in the price of pork and eggs over the past three months.

Pork prices have registered an increase of 30 per cent in the past four months, but are still 16 per cent lower than year-ago levels.

It is a similar story for eggs, reports The Standard.

A ministry spokesman said the increase might be related to the National Day celebrations and other seasonal factors.

There is no shortage of farm produce, he added.

Vendor Chan Chiu-kwan at Sam Po fresh meat shop in Bowrington Road Market, Causeway Bay, said wholesalers blamed the latest 10 per cent increase on a fall in the supply of pigs.

"I am afraid of losing customers so I have not yet increased the retail price.

"But if the situation continues, I may add HK$2 to HK$4 per catty." Chan is now selling pork at HK$28 per catty.

Butchers at Shau Kei Wan wet market said pork prices have risen by 10 to 20 per cent in the past few weeks.

Two stallholders there said the wholesale price for eggs rose 5 to 6 per cent to HK$340 for 360 eggs.

Shoppers told The Standard they have been buying less pork after noticing the price rise in the past few weeks.

A 52-year-old woman said she will buy more fish instead.

Pork Traders General Association deputy chairman Hui Wai-kin warned that pork wholesale prices will rise a further 10 to 20 per cent this winter.

Mainland prices have gone up 20 to 30 per cent since the end of July because of a short supply, but demand is unchanged, he added.

"Demand for pork will naturally increase in winter, so prices will have space to rise 10 to 20 per cent and will not fall during this period."

A Food and Health Bureau spokeswoman revealed that average auction prices had increased from HK$918 in June to HK$984 per 100 catty yesterday.

The government will continue to monitor the supply and auction price of live pigs and release daily price information to enhance market transparency.

But the pork price is market- oriented, the spokeswoman added.

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Pune Govt Prepares for Influenza
MAHARASHTRA, INDIA - The state government is planning to introduce a bill to regularise the poultry and pig industries ahead of any possible outbreak on H1N1 flu.



The state animal husbandry department has decided to replicate the Karnataka state model to regularise poultry and piggery sectors, according to Times of India.

The proposal to regularise the poultry industry, which was mooted when the avian flu struck in 2006, was gathering dust till the H1N1 flu broke out.

Vasant Ramteke, additional commissioner of the state animal husbandry department, said: "Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have a policy for poultry regulation and development and the states have introduced some laws for it. The Maharashtra government wants to study them and the guidelines introduced by the Karnataka government. A bill based on the guidelines will be drafted."

The first meeting for preparing the draft is scheduled for today (23 September). "We were planning to meet in August but could not do so because of other priorities. But with the first meeting scheduled on Wednesday, we will speed up the process," said Mr Ramteke.

The department has appointed Mr Ramteke as chairman of the experts committee for drafting the bill. He said: "As there are hardly any piggeries in other parts of the country, the department will draft a bill for regulation of piggeries on its own."

The experts committee will draft a bill in six months that will be presented to the state government for approval. The move assumes significance in the backdrop of H1N1 flu outbreak in the state.

The expert committee will comprise senior professionals from disease control division, poultry development division and veterinary doctors.

"Pig farming is a scattered business in the state. Hence, piggeries are not on the surveillance system of the department. Once the bill is passed, it will become mandatory for all piggery owners to register themselves with the department. This in turn will help keep a check on outbreak of diseases or viral infections among pigs," said officials in the department.

Elaborating on the benefits of such an act to Times of India, officials said: "The greatest benefit will be disease surveillance and control. Besides, regular inspection, scientific rearing methods, monitoring of hygienic conditions are few other issues covered."

At present, the department does not have any control over piggeries. Unless a law is in place, the piggery owners will never come forward to register themselves, officials stated.

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Piggeries Shut as Demand Falls Due to H1N1 Scare
GHANA - Due to dwindling fortunes in the pig industry, many farmers in the Ashanti Region are being forced to either cease production or convert their farms to produce poultry.



According to The Mail, the farmers attribute the downturn to high cost of feed meal and poor patronage resulting from unguarded media statements on the recent outbreak of the pandemic H1N1 influenza previously known as swine flu.

Kwaku Adjei Mensah has been in the piggery business for the past seven years and says until recently production and sales trends were good.

Mr. Mensah started with 500 animals at his farm located at Ejisu Besease near Kumasi but about 200 pigs are now being tended on the farm.

He told Luv FM's Kofi Adu Domfe he was worried the situation could get worse.

"In fact, production has gone down; our market and system is very poor because of the swine flu," he said.

He chided the media for poorly handling reports on the pandemic as most, according to him, erroneously presented the disease as originating from pigs.

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European Pig Herd Still in Decline
EU - The European pig herd is continuing to fall. Even though it is falling at a much slower rate, it means British prices will stay higher for longer.


The European breeding herd dropped one per cent between May 2008 and May 2009.

Belgium and France are both down over 2 per cent, Hungary is down nearly 7 per cent and Poland is down nearly 4 per cent.

Bucking the trend are Denmark, up 3.2 per cent; United Kingdom, up 5 per cent; and Holland up 1.7 per cent.

Gilts-not-yet-covered data from national surveys suggest the decline is continuing throughout 2009 — down over 6 per cent in Germany, 8.5 per cent in Spain and 4 per cent in France, but up 13.8 per cent in Holland. The Dutch herd defied gravity throughout most of the 2007-08 feed price cisis.

The following is based on returns from the May surveys of 14 European Union member countries:

Total pigs: -1 per cent
Piglets -1.2 per cent
Young pigs -2.6 per cent
Sows -1 per cent
Mated sows -0.5 per cent.

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Monday, September 28, 2009Print This Page
Warning over H1N1 Risk in Big Pig Farms
NETHERLANDS - Supersized pig farms may be a source of H1N1 flu, four Dutch village doctors in Limburg province have said. Protests have been held against the planned building of large pig- and chicken-rearing facilities in their area.



As the worried doctors wrote in a letter to the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, there is a bicycle lane crossing the area, which is used daily by children on their way to school.

According to Radio Netherlands, the doctors point out that the spread of the so-called Mexican flu virus is increased when great numbers of pigs and chickens are packed closely together. It is not clear which infection mechanism they are referring to, since AH1N1 does not originate in pigs. This even led the UN to reject the designation of "swine flu".

Local authorities have committed themselves to investigating the health risks of the building plans. "If there's any danger at all, the erection of these so-called mega stables will be stopped," a townhall spokesperson in the village of Horst said.


 

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CP Chairman sees promise in local swine industry 
[30 September 2009] CP Group Chairman & CEO Dhanin Chearavanont said at a seminar on the future of the Thai livestock industry that he believes the swine farming industry in Thailand holds promise. But he cautioned farmers that they have to accept new ways of modern farming and management and learn how to make investments that will generate high returns. Mr Dhanin added that pig farmers should adopt standard housing and appropriate feeding so as to reduce possible risks of disease and answer to an increasing demand for safety food. He also believes pork consumption in Thailand will increase threefold in the future when the economic condition improves.

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Health Risks as Cairo Starts to Miss its Pigs
EGYPT - Garbage is building up in the streets of Cairo following the slaughter of all the country's pigs in the country earlier this year in the mistaken belief that they posed a significant risk of passing the influenza A H1N1 virus to humans.



Five months after anxiety about swine flu prompted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government to order the slaughter of all the country’s 300,000 hogs, the organic waste they once devoured is piling up on Cairo's streets, contributing to a garbage crisis.

Bloomberg reports that the government's action has destroyed the livelihood of about 70,000 families known as zabaleen, who were freelance trash collectors and urban pig farmers. It forced all pork processors and retail outlets to close and created a potential health hazard as neighborhoods reek of decaying garbage. Some residents, concerned that yesterday's discarded kebab might become tomorrow's cholera outbreak, are burning refuse in bonfires.

Zabaleen – trash collectors in Arabic – are rural migrants who have harvested Cairo's rubbish since the end of the 19th century. Families in the central district of Embaba and in Manshiet Nasr, an outlying neighborhood, were dedicated to picking up trash and sorting organic matter from metal, glass and paper.

They disposed of as much as 80 per cent of organic waste, feeding it to the hogs, which often lived in sties next to zabaleens' homes along undrained dirt lanes. Families made money from recycling and from selling pigs to meat processors.

The Agricultural Ministry ordered the pigs eliminated in April, after the outbreak of H1N1 virus in Mexico and the US. Police clubbed the pigs to death and bulldozed them alive under desert sand. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization called the action a mistake, partly because no link was proven between pigs and transmission of flu.

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009Print This Page
EU Pig Prices: Inconsistent Price Trends
EU - Inconsistent price trends are being reported on from all over the European slaughter pig markets this week.

 

While the prices went down by 2 to 5 cents in Denmark as well as in the Netherlands and in Spain, the German, Belgian and Austrian prices again were able to stabilise on last week’s level. Unchanged prices were quoted in Great Britain and Sweden anew, with slight decreases dependent on the exchange rate.

No new price was quoted in France last Thursday. The slaughter companies there had wanted to enforce a 4 cents’ price decrease. Both the stock exchange and the suppliers did not get into that idea, as a result of good news coming in from abroad about the meat business. The conference was then discontinued last week. In Spain, the colder temperatures and the related improving growth of the pigs are said to have caused the new price decrease. Those pigs are sold on the pigs-mature-for-slaughter market in increasing quantities. In the Netherlands, they have large quantities of pigs mature for slaughter on offer. At the same time, the prices related to parts fell, so the quotation went down by 2 cents.

Trend: Demand being more vivid in the fresh meat business and export working out well, the domestic market is being further relieved. After clear price decreases having occurred over the past three weeks in Germany, the market is expected to remain well balanced the week ahead.

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Russia Reports African Swine Fever in Wild Boar
RUSSIA - The veterinary authorities have reported a new outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) in two wild boar to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).



The Russian veterinary authority sent an Immediate Notification dated 25 September to OIE.

It reports ASF in two wild boar at Karakol game holding at Tarumovsky in the Republic of Dagestan. The Republic is on the far south-west of the country, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The two animals were found dead on 11 September.

The cause of death has been confirmed as ASF.

The last occurrence of the disease in Russia was in June 2009.

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Russia Reports First ASF on a Pig Farm
RUSSIA - The veterinary authorities have reported a new case of African swine fever (ASF) on a pig farm to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).



The Russian veterinary authority sent Follow up Report No. 1 dated 30 September to OIE.

The report describes a case of ASF at Krasnoyarskaya in the region of Rostov. It started on 27 September. Five animals from a herd of 2,791 animals became ill (and were subsequently destroyed) and four died. The farm is described as a 'closed joint stock company'.

The presence of the ASF virus has since been confirmed.

The first case of in the latest outbreak of ASF in the country – in wild boars – was reported to OIE earlier this week.

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Polish Pork, Poultry Meat Prices Rocket
POLAND - The prices of pork and poultry meat have risen 10 per cent since the beginning of 2009.



Warsaw Business Journal reports that, according to experts from the Institute of Agriculture and Food Economy, by December of this year food products and non alcoholic beverages may cost between 4.0 and 4.2 per cent more than a year earlier. In first half of this year, food products were 4.5 per cent more expensive than the same period of 2008.

The largest price increases were recorded in pork and poultry, which jumped 10 per cent on average, according to Rzeczpospolita. For vegetables, the increase was 9.6 per cent.

"In September, the seasonal increase in food prices began. This year, however, it should be much slower than the previous year," commented Krystyna Swietlik from the Institute.

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Danish Pig Producers Use More Antibiotics
DENMARK - During the first six months of this year the use of antibiotics by Danish pig producers increased 12 per cent, according to a report by the Danish Technical University.


According to the Danes, the increase is the result of more young pigs on units during the first half of the year as a result of a 6-7 per cent increase in sow numbers.

According to the report, during 2008 and during the first six months of this year there was a decrease in the use of ‘critical’ antibiotics ie. those that are important for the treatment of humans. 

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EU Pig Prices: Slaughter Market Going Downward
EU - A downward drift is observed on this week’s slaughter pig market.

 

The price decrease throughout Europe is said to be caused by increasing quantities of slaughter pigs on offer. Ireland is the only country not suffering from the price recession. The Irish pig price could be held on the previous week’s level.

As for price decreases, Germany is the leader with its minus three cents (corrected). The quotations in Great Britain and Austria also went down by three cents, whereas France only reported on a half-cent decrease. Downwardly quotations are also observed in Denmark and in the Netherlands. The challenging sale of parts such as ham and increased quantities of pigs mature for slaughter available are said to be accountable for the low payout prices in the Netherlands.

Trend: Export continues to be good of live pigs towards Eastern Europe. This contributes to the rather complex domestic market being relieved. Whether or not the domestic market will stabilise this week very much depends on how the sale of parts is going to develop.

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Monday, October 12, 2009Print This Page
Belgian Pig Producers Send Out Alarm Signals
BELGIUM - Pig producers in Belgium continue to send out alarm signals as they feel they continue to be underpaid for their pigs by large retailers.

 

Production costs for producers amount to €1.40/kg, but they get paid €1.08, the website of the Flemish Information Centre for Agri- and Horticulture (VILT) reports.

"Strikingly, on their websites large retailers show off with 'fair prices' and 'respect for producers', but we all know this is not true," said Steven Lafaut, spokesperson for the Trade Union for Pig Producers (Veva).