Page 851 of articles about news

The latest figures, covering the first three months of the year, show that exports of piglets from Denmark increased by 34 % compared to the same period last year. In total almost 1.7 mill piglets were exported during the three months.

The University of California (UC) has established the UC Animal Welfare Advisory Council to review issues of animal welfare related to animal agriculture and to promote the development of recommendations based on sound science to improve the welfare of livestock and poultry.

In its annual publication ‘Livestock, Meat and Eggs in the Netherlands’, edition 2009, the Productschappen Vee, Vlees en Eieren (PVE; Dutch Product Boards for Livestock, Meat and Eggs) provide a survey of the major developments in the Dutch livestock, meat and egg sectors. Text, figures and illustrations are used in the publication to provisionally assess the results of 2008.

Agriculture Minister David Carter has called for an urgent review of the welfare code for pigs after an animal welfare group secretly filmed alleged ill-treatment at a Levin pig farm.

Scientists at the Institute of Food Research (IFR), Norwich, have shown for the first time that salmonella relies on glucose for its survival; raising the possibility of vaccine protection against this food-borne illness and other disease-causing bacteria, including super bugs.

The Boards of Directors of PERDIGÃO S.A. and SADIA S.A. inform to their shareholders and the market that an association agreement has been executed today by and between both listed companies and the holding company HFF Participações S.A., which will hold the majority of common shares issued by SADIA, in order to allow, by means of the successive transactions described below, the combination of the operations of PERDIGÃO and SADIA. From the Association will result BRF - Brasil Foods S.A., with head offices in the city of Itajaí, Santa Catarina.

Scientists are investigating if alternative pig breeds can supply new, tasty meat products. Senior scientist Hanne Christine Bertram from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Aarhus University, is the leader of a 3½-year project that includes research in the woolly Mangalitza pig from Hungary and high-pressure processing of pork.

As Federal Statistics Service (Rosstat) reported on Monday, in January-April 2009 Russia had produced 1m tons of meat, i.e. up 11.8% from the same period last year. Ready-to-cook meat product manufacturing output was up 7.2% to 442 thousand tons.

As of December 2008, there were an estimated 153 million pigs in the EU, which is 4 per cent lower than 12 months previously. But of greater concern is the fact that the breeding herd was reduced by 6 per cent to just over 14 million animals. Sow numbers in Germany, Denmark and Spain fell by 5 per cent, while there has been a similar decline in the number of in-pig gilts right across the EU.

The Department of Agriculture is to launch a new salmonella scheme in a bid to tackle worrying levels of the disease in the national pig herd. The EU average for salmonella taken from lymph node samples is 10.3pc. However, the figure for Ireland stands at between 15 and 20pc. Ireland tops the table when it comes to carcass contamination at slaughter, which stands at 20pc. The EU average is 8.3pc.

USDA revised second-quarter hog prices downward, to reflect price weakness in April and negative effects of H1N1 flu virus in May. June prices are expected to recover from May lows. First-quarter U.S. pork exports were 1.033 billion pounds, 6.6 percent below a year ago, but more than 30 percent above first-quarter 2007. First-quarter U.S. pork imports were 205 million pounds, 5.5 percent lower than last year, with imports from Mexico accounting for a significant share of the decline. Live swine imports were almost 40 percent lower in the first quarter than a year ago.

China and the Philippines have emphasized that their ban on Canadian pork imports are restricted to hogs and pork from Alberta only.Both countries have enforced the restriction following the incidence of of a H1N1 infection in a hog herd in central Alberta's Clearwater County.

Effective Jan. 1, 2011, the new law will prohibit gestation crates for sows and veal crates for calves. LD 1021 was sponsored by Senator John Nutting (D-Androscoggin County), Senate Chair of the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee. It passed the committee and both chambers unanimously.

The new law of alimentary safety adopted by China, which comes into effect on June 1st 2009, establishes, among other points, that all companies that export food and drink to China must be inspected by the national authorities. (Original in Spanish. Read Google translation here).

Last year Russian pork production totaled to 2m tons, while the consumption was 2.75m tons. The shortage was offset by the imported meat. If the consumption is down 20%, the demand for pork will amount to 2.2m tons. Taking into consideration an 8% domestic production growth, it will be the volume Russian hog breeders will produce. Thus, we may refuse pork imports at all.

Last September researchers with University of Manitoba launched a two year project aimed at recovering magnesium ammonium phosphate, or struvite, from raw liquid or anaerobically digested hog manure for use as phosphorus fertilizer.