Page 853 of articles about news

EU - New functional group of feed additives

13-May-2009
COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 386/2009 of 12 May 2009 amending Regulation (EC) No 1831/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the establishment of a new functional group of feed additives.

United Kingdom - New scheme to improve health of pig herds

13-May-2009
A pig health improvement scheme is being rolled out in Yorkshire ahead of other regions after the county's pig farmers joined forces with Yorkshire Forward to tackle disease and welfare issues. It will include the mapping of all pig units in Yorkshire and Humberside and an attempt to determine their health status as well as looking at how disease enters the country and spreads.

Denmark as a Green Growth country

13-May-2009
The Danish government has just launched a DKr 13.5 billion Green Growth plan that will ensure better conditions for the country’s nature and environment while allowing agriculture to develop.

France - Fallen stock collection and rendering costs

13-May-2009
With an increase of costs expected this year, a new system suggested by Inaporc will be in place on 18th July but beforehand, this system needs to be approved by Brussels. In this new system managed by Inaporc, the contract with renderers would be reduced from 3 years to 1 year renewable twice.

Brazil promotes a special credit line for pig meat

12-May-2009
The Official Diary of Brazil (Diario Oficial de Brasil) last week published (“Portaria Interministerial” n° 279) the conditions for the contracting of a special credit line(Línea Especial de Crédito [LEC]) for pig meat which the Brazilian government has made available to swine producers, cooperatives and agro industries connected to pig meat. (Original in Portuguese. Read Google translation here).

Spain – Meat export figures

12-May-2009
Last year Spain exported 828,000 tonnes of fresh pig meat at a value of 1,632.7 Million euros. The main destinations were France (235,904 tonnes), Portugal (118,401 tonnes), Italy (98,195 tonnes) and Germany (80,380 tonnes). After these countries, the next highest Spanish sales were to Hong Kong and Russia. (Original in Spanish. Read Google translation here).

United Kingdom - Dramatic rise recorded in TB spread to other species

12-May-2009
Last year, 119 cases were identified in eight different ‘non-bovine’ species in England, the latest figures from Defra show. This is more than the previous five years put together and represents a four-fold increase on 2007 when 29 cases were identified in six species. There were 30 cases identified in 2006 and 29 in 2005.

Mexico – Government announces help for the swine sector

12-May-2009
Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture, Alberto Cárdenas Jiménez, announced a packet of eight measures to reactivate the swine sector on which 350,000 jobs directly depend and 1.7 million jobs indirectly depend throughout the country. (Original in German. Read Google translation here).

Netherlands- Dutch farmer to become rare species

12-May-2009
The LEI (agricultural economic research institute) was asked by the Ministry of agriculture and food (LNV) to work out how things will be in the agricultural sector in 2020. The expectation is that the Netherlands will remain a major agricultural producer, but the share of agriculture and horticulture in the Dutch economy will continue to go down.

Switzerland – Painless castration of piglets

12-May-2009
The work group formed by representatives of the different implicated sectors (swine producers, retail distributors, the rendering industry, veterinarians) have agreed on an initial financing of 15 million swiss francs to begin in an efficient manner the castration of piglets by inhalation narcosis. (Original in French. Read Google translation here).

Spreading antibiotics in the soil affects microbial ecosystems

11-May-2009
In a presentation to the Society for General Microbiology meeting at Harrogate International Centre March 30, Dr Heike Schmitt from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands described how antibiotics passed from the animals in manure that was then spread on farmland. Although higher organisms, such as earthworms, would only be affected at unrealistic concentrations of antibiotics, changes in soil bacterial communities have been found repeatedly using molecular microbiological techniques.

China - Pork reserve plan launched in China’s major pig producing province

11-May-2009
The Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Commerce will build a reserve of pork meat to help stabilize prices following a slump in demand caused by the so-called ‘swine flu’. Wholesale prices have dropped to around CNY 10/kg (USD 1.46/kg). The bureau will accumulate a minimum of seven days supply calculated at 100g per person per day for the urban population of the province. Hunan has followed suit.

FAO - Regional plan for FMD control approved

11-May-2009
International experts on Foot-and-Mouth disease (FMD) have agreed on a plan to control the infection in Western Eurasia and stop it spreading west to Europe and North Africa, following a serious epidemic in several Middle Eastern countries.