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Industry Partners
Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
Dealing with Variation in Market Weight
Posted in: Production by admin on January 1, 2004 | No Comments
Variation in market weight is a major concern for swine production systems. Canadian Processors have a relatively narrow weight window and very few packers, making targets very specific. Methods of dealing with variation can be divided into artificial reduction in variation, methods to reduce variation, and managing variation without reducing it. Artificial reduction involves sorting by size in the nursery or finisher and aggressive cross fostering in farrowing.
Driving Costs Out of the Production System
Posted in: Production by admin on | No Comments
As recent history of the U.S. swine industry has evidenced, survival in today’s uncertain economic times depends upon a pig production business having either (1) marketing agreements that provide complete price protection against prolonged declines in both carcass and meat prices or (2) competitively low costs of production along with a marketing agreement that at least dampens declines in market prices. These proceedings offer one view on how cost management can be addressed in a contemporary pork production operation. Our ideas are offered as one approach for how costs can be managed. We do not believe that our method is the only, let alone the best, approach for managing costs. There are, no doubt, numerous approaches being used across the industry today to lower costs, as we all struggle to identify ways of surviving. Our approach has worked in one company, New Fashion Pork, Inc., dropping its costs by nearly $3.00/CWT liveweight over the last 3 years or so; so we know it works. Perhaps, there is something in our approach that will work for you.
Cost management occurs at two levels. The first level involves the control of the purchase price of inputs. The price of some inputs is established, often for long periods of time into the future, when the business structure is established; for example, whether barns are owned or contracted. The price of other inputs is established through the day-to-day purchasing practices of the company. Input purchasing is typically centralized, with responsibility being seated at the level of senior management or staff officers hired specifically to purchase the inputs used by the farms. The farm staff typically has no influence over the cost of the inputs that their farms consume. The second level of responsibility occurs at the farm level, where farm staff controls how many units of an input are consumed, called “unit use.” Office staff has little influence on the rate of use of inputs, unless they restrict how many units of an input are delivered to a farm. While it may seem intuitive, low production costs not only require that inputs be purchased competitively BUT ALSO that they be used sparingly. Because cost management occurs at two levels, the office and the farm must work in concert to drive out costs: the office working to purchase inputs as cheaply as possible, the farm staff working to use as few inputs as they can. If either group fails in their responsibility, cost creep occurs.
Pork Production Trends: Forecasting our Future & Trade Issues: The New Normal
Posted in: Production by admin on | No Comments
Canada’s pork export growth mirrors the overall growth in Canadian pork production. Over the past 24 years the industry has grown by 84%. This is due to the increase in exports. The top 3 countries that Canada exports to are the US (over 50%), Japan (about 20%), and Mexico (5%). Canada is even increasing its share in world export markets, while the US is steadily decreasing. Canadian slaughter capacity has grown by 45% over 10 years. It has gone from a capacity of 340,000 head per week in 1995 to 490,000 per week in 2004, but it has yet to reach the slaughter of 490,000. The US daily capacity is four times greater than Canadian daily capacity. In Canada there are only 3 slaughter plants that run double slaughter shifts. All major US packers tend to run double shifts, and Olymel and Maple Leaf in Canada have stated their intentions of running a double shift. Maple Leaf has even put in an application for environmental approval to run double shifts. Maple Leaf has purchased the likes of Gainers, Burns, Schneider and Mitchell’s, and Olymel has purchased the likes of Fletcher’s. This brings the Canadian participants to 27 plants owned by 20 different companies. The reason for fewer companies owning larger volumes is economies of scale (that is, they can lower cost of production, increase profit from the volume, and increase competitiveness in the world market). Since 1997, the number of hog operations in Canada has been steadily declining while the number of pigs per farm has been increasing. The leading production firm in Canada is Elite Swine ran by Maple Leaf (they had 122,000 sows in 2003). The leading cause for this is the poor financial returns that plague the industry and force the smaller operations to shut down.
Canadian Swine Identification and Traceability
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The purpose of the traceability system in Canada is to allow movement of pigs to continue at the occurrence of a major disease outbreak. The reason this system came about was because of the scare of the 2002 European outbreak of Foot & Mouth Disease. It brought about the realization that Canada’s high health status is not well equipped to deal with a catastrophic outbreak. The initial objectives of this system were to reduce response time of a foreign animal disease outbreak, address the OIE’s guidelines for zoning, and to identify alternatives to these objectives. The principles of this system are to control disease, eradicate disease, enhance producers risk management programs, simplicity, producer-driven, and more. Geo-referencing provides information about where livestock and buildings are and what types and numbers of livestock are in the buildings. All livestock farms in Canada must be geo-referenced and data needs to be collected each time pigs change locations. Development, implementation of regulation, and readjustments are slated to begin in 2005-2006.
Genetic correlations between reproduction and production traits in swine
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Pork Quality and the Role of Market Organization
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