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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:
Merchandising Pork to the Retail Market
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In 2002, consumers were looking for (in regards to purchasing meet): 1) Quality; 2) Food Safety; and 3) Price. Branding the food with guarantees can enforce food quality. Pork can be branded with moisture enhancement, added products, and frozen boxed meat. Food safety assurance can be potentially reassured by genetically modified organisms and by process such as irradiation. With current diet trends and the perceived negative health effects from pork, it is suspect that the poultry industry will grow in the future and the red meat industry will decline.
Part III: Reference of Swine Health and Environmental Management in the United States, 2000
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As part of the National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS), the USDA:APHIS:Veterinary Services (VS) conducted its first national study of the swine industry with the 1990 National Swine Survey. Study results provided an overview of swine health, productivity, and management for 95% of the US swine herd, the population represented by the 1,661 participating producers. The National Swine Survey focused on farrowing sows and preweaning piglets.
NAHMS’ second national swine study, Swine ’95, was designed to provide both participants and the industry with information on over 90% of the US swine herd.
This is the third of a series of reports from the NAHMS’s Swine 2000, study. For this report, data were collected from December 1, 2000, through February 28, 2001, from 799 swine production sites.
Livestock Sectors in the Economies of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union
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Standard Operating Procedures – Getting the Most out of Standard Operating Procedures
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A standard operating procedure (SOP) outlines specific detail on how to carry out a routine procedure. SOPs should include a title, references, appendices, revision date, pictures, warnings, necessary equipment, definitions, and the steps required. For SOPs to be practical, the workers carrying out the tasks should have a great deal of say in the procedure. Using words like “will” and “shall” instead of “can” and “should” help to give direction rather than suggestion. After reviewing and testing the SOP it should be signed and placed in a binder for easy access. This is good for refreshers for current employees and for new employees. SOPs are good for ensuring that procedures that need to get done are performed in a timely manner to allow efficient flow of production. They are also good for training new staff, provide complete and accurate data for all procedures performed in the barn, ensure accuracy of data collected, instill safe working habits, and ensure compliance with company policy. SOPs can fail if a third party creates them, essentially making them completely impractical. If an SOP is too long-winded, too simple (for experienced employees), inaccessible, or not updated regularly, SOPs can fail to do what they are designed for.
Maintaining and Expanding Pork Export to Japan
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In 2000, Canada was the fourth largest food exporter to Japan. Canada’s surplus of grain, barley-fed pork, geography, and quality makes Canada prime for exporting pork to Japan. The Japanese value quality, price, service, supply, and long-term business relationships. Japans meat self-sufficiency has been declining while preference for “western-style” foods (rather than fish) have been increasing, which makes import pork more attractive than domestic pork. Japan’s pork market values meat firmness, taste, and quality. In 2000 Japan imported 42.2% of its total consumption from (primarily) Canada, Denmark, and the US. Canadian pork can be differentiated from competitors via the fact that barley fed pork has greater value and by using brand names (based on freshness, fat trimming, weight range, amount of purge, quality and consistency). To comply with Japans picky market, producers must produce what the market wants rather than what they want to sell. Chilled pork desires include less than 1.3 cm of inter-muscular fat in the belly, thin sliced shoulders and hams, and a strict carcass freshness standard. Frozen pork is typically used for processing purposes. To improve competitiveness in quality and price, a high-value brand should be created and marketed (improve freshness, security, cutting, and packing methods). International diversification of business, exporting chilled and frozen pork, production of hogs for the Japan market, and an effective promotion of barley fed pork can all help to improve competitiveness and price.
Diets containing high-quality animal proteins increase growth of early-weaned pigs
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Effects of North American Free Trade Agreement on Agriculture and the Rural Economy
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Fine Tuning the Breeding Program
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The demands of particular pork products will likely result in specific genotypes, managed in specific production systems, becoming the norm in the industry. Some concerns include genetic lag (time from bringing in the genetics and getting them to the production level) and biosecurity issues. Fine-tuning is needed in order to get the breeding herd to maximize the desired gene. Three important issues in replacement gilts include good genes to deposit proper tissues for a good reproductive life, tissue mass required at breeding, and how to manage the variation in growth performance. With a sound heat detection program, gilts can begin cycling at an early age. Gilts that come into estrus later have a compromised reproductive life so should be culled. Keeping these gilts around will bring about costs of non-productive days and reduced breeding herd productivity. Hormones can also be used to reduce breeding herd variability and induce cycling (such as PG 600). They can also be used to treat non-cyclic gilts if the gilts happen to be absolutely needed. In order for breeding targets to be met, there needs to be a set number of cyclic gilts. A feeding program that includes an oral progesterone hormone can be used to bring a group of gilts into a synchronized heat. Body variation of gilts going into the farrowing rooms should be minimized and feeding should be adequate so that they do not deplete too much of their reserves and further compromise future reproduction. Molecular genetics is being investigated to see how much they can improve this area genetically. Management of the first parity sow must be given a high priority. During lactation, a sow cannot go back into estrus. During this time, the reproductive system reverts back to a fertile stage. The uterus returns to a non-pregnant state and the hormone levels in the brain and the pituitary return to normal. Suckling is the primary block of estrus during lactation (it suppresses an important hormone). Loss of body condition in first parities has very negative effects on future fertility. Feed intake needs to be maximized (in late lactation especially) in order to prevent the breakdown of body reserves (aim for less than 10% breakdown). Weaning to estrus interval is farm-specific (depending what genetics they run) and should be taken into account to reduce non-productive days. Treatment with products such as PG 600 can help to bring these sows back into synchronicity. The selection of AI boars is an area that can be improved which can increase the fertility of AI doses. The most fertile boars are required to reach lower sperm numbers and doses needed. Post-cervical insemination can drastically lower the required amount of sperm per dose, and knowing the time of ovulation in a sow can work together to lower the amount of sperm, doses, and increase the number of breedings per boar. The use of improved extenders and the ability to freeze semen will improve breeding efficiency by leaps and bounds.