The gasp from Miss Q was accompanied by her stopping in her tracks.  Clearly when I said we were going to see the pigs, she had Wilbur, from Charlotte’s Web, and Pig Will and Pig Won’t from Richard Scarry’s Busytown in her head, not five pink pigs that out weighed her and could look her in the eye.

I have to admit, when the pigs wandered towards us, en mass, I wondered if the thin ankle-high electric fence was enough to protect us.  Suddenly a stroll down a country trail to a pig farm didn’t seem like the best choice – especially when I saw the pile of freshly chipped branches in front of us.  Were wood-chippers a staple on pig farms or just the ones where axe-murderers lived?

As usual, as my brain wanders to the macabre, Miss Q jumps in with her questions.  ”Why are they eating mud?”  ”Why are there chickens with them?”  ”Why are they looking at me?”

Seeing the world through Miss Q’s eyes (which, I might add, are bigger than the giant pigs’) is my favourite past time.  Everything is new and inquisitive until she formulates the big-picture.  Sometimes her brain works faster than her mouth, you can actually see that happen as she stutters to get her questions out.

It’s a constant challenge for my brain: what answer is going to satisfy her? I don’t sugarcoat my answers, I try to keep it simple, but sometimes a more technical answer is useful too.  Like when her Grandpa was explaining stars to her.  I found myself leaning in to listen alongside Miss Q; it was a great Astronomy 101 refresher.

After staring at the pigs, which, for the most part, were staring back, we wandered back to the van.  ”This pig is hungry,” Miss Q stated.

“I have snacks for the pig in the car.”

“This pig wants water.”

“I have water for the pig in the car.”

“The pig also wants a little stuffed pig.”

“What will a pig do with a stuffed pig?”

“The pig will keep it on a shelf.”

“Hmm.  Did those pigs back there have shelves?”

“They did.”

Ten minutes with the pigs and they were no longer formidable creatures.  The five pigs in the farmer’s mud pit will be forever in Miss Q’s heart; her new friends on par with Wilbur, Pig Will and Pig Won’t.

We’ll return for a visit, but as Miss Q told me as we got into the car, “They might not be there when we come back.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The farmer might have sold them.”

That’s my girl!

Incidentally, The Pig didn’t get a stuffed pig for her shelf.

At this time of year, as Autumn slides intractably into winter and the nights draw in, the nature of my cycling changes. Rather than the longer dayrides of the summer, I embark on shorter rides around more local haunts. The sunsets, twilights and night views provide different photographic subject matter to that of my summertime excursions. At this time of year I frequent Cannock Chase, central Staffordshire and the area to the east of Tamworth.

You may have noticed by now that I’ve got a bit of a fascination with Rugeley power station. I make no apologies for the fact that I find it beautiful and fascinating, particularly at night. The facility represents the triumphalism and scale of the post-war infrastructure boom of the fifties, and the scale and belligerence of the industrial design never ceases to leave me speechless. Visible for miles, I find it endlessly wonderful to photograph.

'I dunno about you, but these starlings are really starting to take the piss...' Shenstone Park, Staffordshire 12:29pm, Sunday 15th November 2009

Dunstall church in the golden hour, Dunstall, Staffordshire 3:32pm, Sunday 15th November 2009

Rugeley Power Station and beyond from Hoar Cross, Staffordshire 4:11pm, Sunday 15th November 2009

Rugeley Power Station from the historic High Bridge, Handsacre, Staffordshire 4:49pm, Sunday 15th November 2009

Looking up the Trent Valley from Handsacre to Armitage, Staffordshire 4:52pm, Sunday 15th November 2009

]]> http://ugaanimallaw.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/pig-farm-abuses-revealed/ Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:36:25 +0000 Reagan http://ugaanimallaw.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/pig-farm-abuses-revealed/

An undercover video has been released by Mercy for Animals (MFA) showing abuses at a national pig farm. I think it’s especially important that this video is getting attention from a major news network. See the story here.

What does the Swine Flu and the Child Nutrition Act have in common?

Every day during the school year, more than 30 million children receive free or reduced-price lunches under the federal National School Lunch Program, and 10 million get breakfast under the National School Breakfast Program. Pork is included in many of the meals served through those important programs. http://www.porkmag.com/news_editorial.asp?pgID=768&ed_id=7604

The vegetarians and animal rights groups are trying to eliminate meat from school programs as the Child Nutrition Act is about to expire TODAY- September 30, 2009. “Organizations also are calling for the programs to include less or no processed meat, claiming that such “high-fat” products are contributing to obesity, heart disease and cancer.”  Like taking your kid to McDonald’s doesn’t?

…during congressional debate on the Child Nutrition Act is the safety of food. People want to know — as well they should — that the food they eat is free from pathogens that can cause illness and even death. Recent food-safety scares, ironically involving fruits and vegetables, have prompted Congress to review the nation’s food-safety system. This may spawn efforts to include in the child nutrition law new safety regimens for food production, limits on antibiotic use and restrictions on certain animal production practices.”

“The National Pork Producers Council is lobbying members of Congress to keep such mischief out of the Child Nutrition Act and to oppose efforts to reduce or eliminate pork from the school breakfast and lunch menus.”

The irony in citing food safety is that there is no mention of Swine Flu.  Twenty countries have banned imports of pigs, pork and other meat in response to the H1N1 flu strain that has infected both people and swine. This despite the fact that the Centers for Disease Control and the Pork Industry and others have made it clear that swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food and you cannot get the flu from eating pork or pork products.

From the site “Civil Eats” http://civileats.com/2009/09/08/cafo-workers-and-unchecked-swine-flu/comment-page-1/#comment-3997“

The United States Department of Agriculture agreed last week to buy an additional $30 million dollars worth of pork from the ailing pork industry, for a total of $151 million dollars purchased this year, as recompense for supposed damage wrought by the emergence of the swine flu in our common public lexicon (and the result will no doubt keep kids in public schools flush with factory-farmed sausage pizza this year).”

Did $30 million of our tax dollars buy healthy pigs? 

Environmental Health Perspectives’ (EHP) cover story this month by Charles W. Schmidt focuses on the issue in detail, reigniting questions surrounding our country’s current standard animal industry practices:

…one potential source of the original outbreak—swine farming in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—has received comparatively little attention by public health officials. CAFOs house animals by the thousands in crowded indoor facilities. But the same economy-of-scale efficiencies that allow CAFOs to produce affordable meat for so many consumers also facilitate the mutation of viral pathogens into novel strains that can be passed on to farm workers and veterinarians, according to Gregory Gray, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa College of Public Health.

Civil Eats goes on to note- CAFOs fall through regulatory cracks when it comes to sampling for novel viruses that could make people sick. [Associate director for epidemiologic science in the Influenza Division of the CDC Carolyn Bridges] explains that producers have little incentive to test for swine influenza’s, in part because they aren’t included on a list of 150 “reportable illnesses” that, when detected, must be documented with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

http://www.oie.int/eng/en_index.htm says:

should the presence of the “pandemic H1N1 2009 virus” be detected on a farm, the holding should be subject to a surveillance plan and movement restrictions applied until recovery; the transfer of clinically healthy pigs from the farm to the slaughterhouse can be done using basic bio-security measures. ;

Alas, the first cases of Swine Flu reportedly came from near Smithfield Foods massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz.

“CAFO workers can also pick up H1N1 infections and experience a range of symptoms depending on their own immunity, says Gray. In humans, what makes novel H1N1 unique is its remarkable and still mysterious capacity for person-to-person transmission. http://www.ehponline.org/members/2009/117-9/focus.html

“With massive concentrations of farm animals within whom to mutate, these new swine flu viruses in North America seem to be on an evolutionary fast track, jumping and reassorting between species at an unprecedented rate.  This reassorting, Webster’s team concludes, makes the 65 million strong U.S. pig population an “increasingly important reservoir of viruses with human pandemic potential. http://www.hsus.org/farm/news/ournews/swine_flu_virus_origin_1998_042909.html

Chicken fairs no better from the folks at Factory Farming http://www.hsus.org/farm/resources/research/pubhealth/public_health_avian_influenza.html- ”Genetic selection for productivity and the stressful, overcrowded, and unhygienic confinement of animals in industrial poultry production systems facilitate immune suppression in birds already bred with weakened immunity, offering viruses like avian influenza ample opportunities for spread, amplification, and mutation. Placing genetically un-diverse birds into these kinds of unsanitary environments with inadequate ventilation and sunlight exposure is believed to provide a ripe “breeding ground” for the emergence and spread of such diseases as virulent avian influenza—diseases with human public health implications.

Will the kids miss out on free bacon and eggs tomorrow while they wait in line for the H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccinations in school?

Open wide, say ahhh and check out these posts on the A/H1N1 Swine Flu from Ahrcanum, where the conspiracy spreads as fast as the virus itself.

While Swine Flu Conspiracy theory can sometimes be triggered by real world events. Opinions are like a$$holes be sure to subscribe to ours via RSS in the top right margin for updates.

http://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/swine-flu-report/

Some weeks ago, I was visiting a pig farm for a photo shooting. When we got the DVDs with the pictures there was also one of me…with the cutest little piggy ever. The little one was only 12 hours old.

Pig farm visit

Here in Monteverde it’s the rainy season, but who said the weather is normal anywhere in the world anymore? The green mountain is no exception – after weeks of December/January type weather (tumultous wind, blowing rain, chilly), we are now in “puro verano”, that is summertime. The sun is shining and hot, the wind is casual, the moisture level at a monthly low. Thank goodness.

This gorgeous climate has provided some beautiful final days for me. I’ve been squeezing in as many activities as possible before I go – first back to Cahuita for a couple weeks with Roberto and the pleasures of the Caribbean, then home to Canada just in time for our autumnal beauty.

A couple of weeks ago, a new person walked into my life, one of those cases of the right person arriving at the right time. Caroline Castillo Crimm, a Professor of History at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, came to Monteverde to work on a book that will document the comings and goings in this area – much of which has been recorded in some form or another (read Walking with Wolf) but her book will look at the details of this history, in particular who the original Tico families were, something that is only documented in the government archives in San José.

 Caroline introduced herself to Wolf and me at an event at the Monteverde Institute and charmed us immediately by saying how she had read our book and thought it was “brilliant.” I, of course, immediately thought she was too! Her smile and enthusiasm is contagious. Since then, she has been mentoring me in how to get the book out – convincing me not to put my efforts into finding a distributor or agent, middlemen who will take their percentage while putting the book on store shelves amongst the millions of others. Caroline has written three books herself and knows that the onus will still be on me to publicize the book. So if I don’t mind doing it, she recommends that I spend more time writing to universities, environmental groups, Quaker meetings, etc. and offer my services as a speaker with an interesting presentation and a great book. The catch is I need to charge an honorarium and travel expenses since, as she says, I’m now a professional writer. I’m working on that part. 

So I’ve created an internet announcement that I will send by the thousands when I return to Canada in September. I love to travel and have no problem speaking in public and am, of course, very proud of the book. I’m honored to go out and tell Wolf’s story as well as some of the fascinating history of Monteverde. Caroline has given me a new objective, renewed confidence and a direction that I’m excited about.

In return, I’ve shared my knowledge of things here with her – over dinner we discussed the Monteverde Music Festival of the 1990s that I was a part of. Last Saturday I took her on a walking tour of Monteverde, showing her where the original families live and telling her some of the background chisma that one can only gather from years of living here and knowing a large variety of people.  We had a beautiful day for this walk, starting out near the cheese factory (where the milks cans were being delivered, some still by oxcart) and walking up towards the Reserve, the “northern” part of the community. I think of the top part of the mountain as “north” since it is inevitably colder than going down to the “southern” part, Santa Elena, where you can find sun and sweat more readily – even though the compass would tell you the absolute opposite.  Maybe it’s a Canadian thing.

We stopped for coffee at the gorgeous new home of local biologist, Mills Tandy, another Texan, who is the owner of one of my favorite little abodes, “the plastic house”.  Built with corrugated plastic siding back in the late 1980s, it isn’t any bigger than the modern bathroom in his new home, but for one person, or a very loving couple, it is perfect.  I lived there for a few weeks many years ago and thoroughly enjoyed its remote location in the forest and its very simple layout. Small is beautiful stuff. Mills has recently cleaned it up - because of its deep woods location, it can become a moss-covered relic quickly – and is ready to rent it out again and the place never looked better.

Continuing on to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, we bumped into Marcos, a resident of San Luis, the farming community just below Monteverde, who is an employee of the Reserve and was out doing some road repairs. He is one of the original founders of La Finca Bella project down in the valley of San Luis. Since the 1990s, local families took matters into their own hands and, with some assistance from the Monteverde Conservation League, have worked at creating a sustainable agricultural center for the community, growing coffee and other crops and helping each other survive economically. It has been a struggle but somehow this project, along with other initiatives in San Luis (such as a satellite campus of the University of Georgia), have kept this simple healthy community alive.

It may be inevitable that tourism is going to replace agriculture eventually – the pressure to move into a tourism-based economy is too strong and the difficulties of a farm-based economy too real – but the families of San Luis continue to face the future with a communal concern and intelligence. They have the volcanic growth of the communities above them – Santa Elena, Cerro Plano and Monteverde – as a good example of what happens if you don’t plan and control the development that comes with the influx of new people and the demands of tourism.

Wolf & Lucas Ramirez, former Reserve employee at U of Georgia campus, San Luis

Many of the employees at the Reserve have come from San Luis. I remember being astounded in 1990 at the fact that most of these young men (and a woman or two) walked up from the valley. I’m not sure how many kilometers that is, but I can tell you it is a long, very steep climb. They worked all day at the Reserve and then walked back down at night.

Caroline with Yory Mendez and Luis Obando – who I remember walking up from San Luis since 1990

I decided back then that there is a genetic fortitude to the people of San Luis and my enjoyment of this, along with their humble manner and warm smiles, has made it a great pleasure to know many of the families - with names such as Leiton, Vargas, Brenes, Cruz, Ramirez, and Obando. 

Caroline and I visited with friends at the Reserve before continuing our tour by passing through the beautiful bullpen, which worked its magic on her as it does on all, for a quick visit with Wolf and Lucky. Lucky was in the middle of a terrible virus, so we didn’t linger. Wolf was relaxing in the hammock that he hung recently out on their wrap-around veranda overlooking the goats in the field and the Gulf of Nicoya in the distance.

We then went back down to the Friends’ school to catch the end of the CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange) group’s final presentations at the end of their two month’s program here. Their professor, Karen Masters, also happens to be my “boss lady” in the Bosqueeterno S.A. work I’ve taken on, and her husband, Alan, who co-runs the course with her, is also the excitable and talented keyboardist/singer in the group Chanchos de Monte, our local British rock band that I’ve written about before (and went to dance to that night).

We hungrily ate lunch with them and then walked out to the Rockwell corner of Monteverde, past the controversial pig farm that supplies the cheese plant with their pork products, and to see the stunning vistas from that corner of the community. We had a quick visit with Mary Rockwell, another of the original Quakers who arrived in 1951 with her husband Eston. In a matter of minutes, Mary had us intrigued by her many stories. Caroline truly saw for herself the beauty that is Monteverde.

We ended our tour back at the meeting house to discuss the flower decorations for the wedding that we were all attending the next day. Caroline and I, along with Wolf’s son Alberto and his wife Angelina, offered to take care of that – very pleasant work but someone had to do it.   I am truly appreciate of the help that Caroline has given me – as I said, she arrived just as I needed a new inspiration for getting Walking with Wolf out in the world. She is someone who will only add to the beauty which is Monteverde.  It is all around us, every day. I’ll keep with this theme in the next episode of …………

I’m scared of the swine flu.

As someone who has compromised respiratory functions and an antibiotic allergy (and I am aware that antibiotics don’t kill viruses, such as that which causes swine flu, but they do cure consequent bacterial infections) swine flu could be a death sentence for me.

So who is to blame for putting my health and possibly my life at risk. Well, according to this article in The Guardian, which is one of the few MSM media outlets I have some respect for, it is the factory pig farmers:

North Carolina has the densest pig population in North America, with around twice as many swine mega-factories as any other state. In 1998, North Carolina’s pig population had hit ten million, up from two million just six years before. Yet the number of hog farms was decreasing, with more and more animals being crammed into fewer and fewer farms. Since the primary route of swine flu transmission is thought to be the same as human flu, the increased potential for the spread of disease in such conditions is clear.

More research is urgently needed to explore the potential link between industrialised animal farming, and the spread of disease. Some elements of the Mexican media are already pointing to the potential role of intensive pig farming in Mexico, which has grown substantially in recent years, with some giant operations raising tens of thousands of pigs at a time.

Guess it is the intensive pig farmers who have done this, including the hero of New Zealand’s right, Roger Douglas.

Guess what, Sir Roger, you can’t fight nature, no matter how much money you can make through trying, because it will always come back to bite you on the bum.

When the Mike King pig farm visit story broke, Sue Kedgley talked about getting a cross-party delegation of MPs together to go and inspect some of the country’s pig farms.

I’m not sure how she’s going recruiting MPs from other parties, but I’d bet good money that one particular MP won’t be on her delegation.

On September 14 1991 The New Zealand Herald reported that Sunshine Pig Farms Ltd, situated at Old Great South Road, Ramarama, near Drury in South Auckland had gone into receivership the previous day, but that the receiver would continue to trade. Managed by Roger Douglas Associates the property kept 5,000 pigs in stalls. The article goes on to report that earlier in the year the company was fined $5,000 in the Otahuhu District Court and ordered to pay $9,419.79 in costs for spilling 30,000 cubic metres of effluent into the Manukau Harbour and surrounding countryside. The spillage occurred when the largest of a series of oxidation ponds on the farm burst its embankment. When Sir Roger Douglas was questioned about his pig-farming enterprise he is reported as saying: “There is money in it.”

On March 4 1992 the Holmes Programme exposed the horrors of the sow stall in a programme which featured pig-farmer ex-Minister of Finance Roger Douglas, in which criticism was levelled at this former politician for his factory farming activities. Holmes reported that prior to screening the programme he was contacted by the Managing Director of the Pork Marketing Board, Dave Dobson, who reminded him what the Board spends advertising its products on television!

Roger Douglas in charge of a pig farm is like Richard Worth in charge of a beauty pageant – everything’s rooted about it!

Wouldn’t it be great to see an end to the torture of pigs in factory pig farms? Just change the code and/or the Animal Welfare Act, prohibit the importation of pig meat that cannot be certified as free range, and it could be done overnight. Right?

Um, no, wrong!

The problem is the WTO. We can’t under the WTO prohibit the importation of factory farmed pig meat without facing punitive retalliatory action. WTO rules supersede our national sovereignty in that regard.

I’m very uncomfortable that the “free trade” requirements of the WTO over-ride our ability to make domestic law to protect animals from the sort of barbaric exploitation we’ve seen over the past few days.

I’m also say that I’m very uncomfortable that they over-ride our ability to keep unsustainably produced goods, like kwila timber and palm kernel, out of New Zealand.

This is a big call, and New Zealand is a small player on the international stage. But should we not be standing up and calling for WTO reform to help the world rid itself of cruel and unsustainable agricultural and forestry practises?

But short of WTO reform to put environmental and animal welfare considerations on a higher footing than freedom of trade, which our Government should be lobbying for, we can still do something.

We can enforce country of origin labeling of food products. That way, assuming we also clean up our own pig stys, consumers can make the choice to not purchase pork from those countries that continue to tolerate the cruelty of factory farming.

Lety Pig Farm

A Czech cabinet minister has started a campaign to have a pig farm at the former Lety concentration camp relocated to a more suitable site. Earlier attempts made by the European Parliament and a Gypsy rights group in the country failed due to lack of funding from the Czech government.

Lety Camp Barracks

Lety was initially set up as a labour prison, mainly for convicted criminals, but in 1942 its purpose changed to that of a Nazi internment camp for Gypsies. An estimated 359 people died there, including 241 children. Over 500 more were later deported to the death camp at Auschwitz, but most of those who ran the camp went unpunished after the war. Under communist rule in the 1970s, the Czechoslovakian authorities had the industrial pig plant in question built there.

Lety Piggery

Michael Kocab, minister for minorities and human rights in the Czech Republic, wants to form a foundation aimed at raising the £23 million ($35 million, €26 million) needed to move the large pig farm to a different location in the southern Bohemian town. He then plans to convert the current site into a memorial to those who perished there in the 1940s.

Lety Concentration Camp

Much as I can see how locating a piggery on such a site is inappropriate to say the least, I do think that the money – if it is ever raised – could be better spent than on moving the farm elsewhere. Discrimination against Gypsies is on the rise in the Czech Republic as is the Neo-Nazism that fuels it. Millions of pounds/dollars/euros would go a long way in tackling both problems. . . .

A report published today shows the Swine Flu Virus is not a mix of human/bird and pig genes, but originates from pigs only. It isn’t the hybrid people once thought. The most likely explanation for the flu spreading to humans? Swine farm “lagoons” that attract flies and insects, which leads to contact with humans. Wired has a great article posted with a detailed explanation.

I was surfing the web for date ideas and stumbled upon a pot of gold. I was fortunate enough to find a list of 150 Date ideas from FunNewJersey.com

The list has a lot of good ideas for dates, but a lot of the places are open seasonal and over the summer. I was able to find places I never knew existed in New Jersey Such as:

-Wine Making… I will do this by the end of the semester guaranteed.

-A Dinner Theatre

-A pig farm resort

-An archery range

-A coal mine museum

- Whale Watching– Dustin is very excited to do this…

-Smithsville

Dustin and I will probably go to a few places from the list the site provided, but we will go to other places as well.  Make sure to check back often for more great ideas, and to keep track of our adventures.

<3 Veronica

A sick pig sprayed down with blue paint by farm workers for no good reason

Peta’s investigation in a pig farm resulted in 22 criminal charges against Hormel in the state of Iowa. Pigs are severely abused and suffer from major neglect in ways most unimaginable. Pigs, as other livestock animals in America’s meat farms suffer immense cruelty from being sprayed down with paint, electrocution, neutered without anesthesia to being beaten and kicked like worthless objects. Pigs in particular are extremely intelligent and have been compared to human’s age six—they feel pain, experience love and loss. If you are a meat eater, please go organic, where they roam free and are treated with respect and compassion. Read the full article here.
11/3/08 Addendum

Hormel issued an email blast (at least to petitionists) below disclaiming that the pig farm cruelty expose was not about them, although I went to their site and found no such rebuttal – here is the email (not sure if it’s real or not):

A video was released the evening of September 16, 2008 that showed images from a hog farm in Iowa. It is important to note that the farm in the video is not a Hormel Foods’ farm and the people are not Hormel Foods’ employees.We find the images in this video appalling and they are inconsistent with our standards and industry standards for animal handling.

The abuse on the video depicted practices that are completely unacceptable.

We expect all current suppliers to adhere to the proper animal handling standards from day one and continue to do so throughout our relationship. We are working with our supplier to ensure this activity is no longer taking place, and they are investigating this matter and will take appropriate disciplinary actions, including terminating employees. Underscoring our company’s zero tolerance policy, we have in the past
terminated employees, truckers and contracts with producers when animal welfare issues have arisen.

Animal welfare and animal husbandry have always been top priority at Hormel Foods. This is simply about treating animals humanely because it’s the right thing to do. We take our zero tolerance policy for the inhumane treatment of animals very seriously and have implemented many standards outlined in our responsibility report :
http://www.hormelfoods.com/responsibility/process/animalWelfare.aspx.

Rochelle Kroc
Manager Of Consumer Response

• Slaughterings in Denmark by Danish Crown fell 4% to 17.9 million pigs in 2007, accounting for 84% of the total Danish output. Danish Crown announced the closure of another 2 of its plants in April this year as competition for the pig supply intensifies.
• Pig processing facilities costing about US$72 million and capable of generating up to 60 000 tons of pork per year as well as 25 000 tons of red meats are planned by Russian meat importer Meatland Food Group. The 2 slaughter plants it operates at present are leased. Construction of the new plant near St Petersburg will start in the second half of 2008 for completion at the end of 2010.

Water to pork

An award-winning Australian unit has pioneered ways to reduce the use of water in pork production

Claire Penniceard operates The Pig Pen in Victoria, Australia, which is involved in a number of environmental initiatives including those on water use. “I have not been working to establish the reality or even the fine measurements climate change,” she declares. “We are all going to have to manage within some significantly changed parameters for agricultural production. I am about solutions, within whatever the final measurements of climate change turn out to be.”

Water matters a great deal when you operate in the world’s driest continent. So it should be no surprise that attempts in Australia at analyzing the inputs for agribusiness products have been particularly interested in water use.

In 2008, industry body Australian Pork Ltd will be completing a so-called life-cycle analysis or LCA of pig production, in which the usage of water will be a key point. Similar analyses have already been completed on behalf of the dairy, beef and grain industries, while Australian wine producers are participating in an international version covering grape culture.

Even now, some figures compiled in Australia indicate that producing pigs makes more effective use of scarce water resources than various other pig farming systems. A report in Australian journal WME Magazine quotes estimates from national research bureau ABARE for the financial return realized from each million litres required by an agribusiness enterprise. The figure for product value at farmgate prices per megalitre (ML) are said to range from A$400 for rice to A$700 for beef, sheep, cotton and sugar, whereas aquaculture is reckoned to earn up to A$120,000.

A report in Australian journal WME Magazine quotes estimates from national research bureau ABARE for the financial return realized from each thousand liters required by an agribusiness enterprise. The figure for earnings per ML are said to range from A$400 for rice to A$700 for beef and sheep, whereas aquaculture is reckoned to earn as much as A$120 000.

Note therefore the earnings per ML attributed by the WME report to one particular pig unit in Victoria, Australia. Trading as The Pig Pen and operated by Claire Penniceard, this is reckoned to make A$650 000 per ML of water. It is due partly to the animal, says the WME report. Monogastrics are far better than ruminants at feed efficiency. While it takes 8.5kg of grain-based feed to put a kilogram of meat on an average 65kg lamb in lot-fed situations, less than 2.5kg is needed for adding 1kg to a 100kg pig.

Other contributors to the comparatively low water requirement are listed to include the use of a highly integrated and efficient feedlot system. The reference here is to Claire Penniceard’s development of an enterprise in the Euroa area of northern Victoria over the past 7 years that now produces 28,000 pigs per year for export to Singapore from deep-bedded ecoshelters. A fundamental factor has been her desire to take sustainability to the maximum possible and to produce pigs with the smallest possible environmental footprint.

“An enterprise is not truly sustainable unless it can be repeated indefinitely,” she declared to WME editor Richard Collins. “As soon as you need top-ups from outside to keep the business going, you are no longer sustainable.”

When produced efficiently, she adds, pigs come out on top in most metrics of sustainable livestock production, from kilos of grain or feed per kilogram of meat produced to revenue per megalitre of water.According to the average rainfall recorded for the Euroa area, a block of land measuring only 48 metres x 30 metres would have been enough to receive the 4 megalitres of water that industry data suggested were needed for each of her 2 new pig production sites. Obviously this area would be far too small for producing pigs commercially, so she bought a block amounting to 250m x 250m or about 6.25 hectares. Each of these sites can harvest 34 megalitres of water per year.

Water quality is tested regularly at a laboratory in Victoriaauthorized to undertake the checks. The unit has established dual water sources from the town system and local extraction to guarantee continuity of supply and make it entirely independent of rainfall, all of which is therefore contributed to the environment. Rainwater trapped behind a dam on the property is made available to the Country Fire Association to take all it needs, a valuable social service in rural Australia.

Water and energy use at The Pig Pen are minimized by having open sheds in which a novel misting system helps to keep the pigs cool. Supplies from both water sources for the enterprise are piped directly into tanks and taken from there to the mister-cooler lines and drinkers in the piggery, leaving no part of the supply line open to contamination.

Nothing is discharged from the sites. Manure and straw become a valuable mulch, capable of regenerating the soil of 3500ha of land each year. Claire is also evaluating an unusual form of bedding in her ecoshelters. Instead of cereal straw, she has tried a waste product from wine growing for possible use in deep-litter systems. It is known as grape marc and consists of the residue of skins and seeds left after grapes are pressed for wine. Although problematic to wine growers, it is thought in Australia to have high promise as an increasingly important bedding material. In a country that has been hit by successive droughts, conventional straw has joined water in becoming a resource that is less available and more expensive.

Intensive, western-style pig production units in China are enjoying enhanced levels of profit despite seeing a significant rise in their input costs.

In round figures, there are 1 billion pigs on our planet. About half of them are located in China. Only 5 years ago, China was looking to become a pig exporting nation. Now in 2008 it has become a major importer. What are the economics and factors that have driven these major changes?

Like most countries, China now suffers inflation pressures derived from commodity-related issues, particularly in food and energy supply. The overall annual inflation rate in China rose in 2006 to 4%, well above the then benchmark 3.4%, and it continued to rise so it was at 5.9% in November 2007 and reached 8.5% by March and April 2008. Rising feed prices were the main contributor to this, up by 23% from a year earlier, while non-food prices rose only 1.6% in this period. Within the food price rises, vegetables accounted for 22% and grains (rice) another 6%, but pigmeat (largely pork) was responsible for 49%.

Pork is the number one meat of cultural choice for Han Chinese, regularly accounting for 70% or more of the meat products eaten. Between 85-90% of the pig carcasses produced are consumed as freshly slaughtered and butchered cuts, prepared in a wide range of recipes. Many of these chosen cuts and dishes confer specific meanings to the meal, such as the consumption of pig trotters prior to a journey and of pig-head skin soup for a celebration.

Even with the country’s official policy of one child per family, the further growth of the population (already over 1.3 billion people) will combine with the urbanization of many more meat consumers in China to further increase this strong demand for fresh pork. Population growth alone would account for a projected pork demand increase of 4% per year. The urban-enhanced incomes would account for a further 3%. In other words, current trends would allow for pork consumption in China to grow at an annual average rate of 7%.

Since 2005, however, there have been major problems in the internal Chinese pork supply to meet this demand. Recent reductions in pork supply have been caused by a series of issues affecting pig production in China. Farmers in all countries tend to be reluctant to discuss their actual costs of production, farm-gate prices and other issues. Chinese farmers are no exception, therefore the analysis of typical figures for production values may often be made only by central administrators.

The federal Ministry of Agriculture in China publishes freely-available figures for pig farm-gate prices, weaner piglet prices and retail prices (these can be found at website www.agri.com.cn). Its month-by-month charts are based on figures supplied by provincial authorities and have been regularly used by internal experts and also outside bodies when discussing pork supply and prices in China. Chinese pig experts also like to use a trend line based on the pig price divided by the grain price as a rough measure of profitability.

Some problems can occur with interpretation of these basic figures. One is the fact that they are averaged across the entire Chinese industry, which is not homogeneous. Small pig farms still form a large sector, probably 50-60% of production. But the pig breeding and farming of western-style pigs and intensive pig farming methods has been encouraged and has dramatically increased across China in the past 10 years. It has risen from only 20% of total national production in 2000 to over 40% now.

The costs and supply issues for each sector—backyard, family or intensive—vary widely. Besides these variations among types of pig production, there is considerable variation around different parts of China in prices along the pork chain. The pig industry in the prosperous south-east provinces around Guangzhou, and the mid-eastern provinces around Shanghai, has a large western-style farm structure with higher prices all along the pork chain. Pig production in other provinces is generally of a lower input and price structure, with lower technical standards, particularly in the north-east. Any agriculture ministry figures, such as for farm-gate price, could therefore differ widely from the reality for a particular commercial pig farm situation.

Local consumer sources supply some comparison data for intensive pig and pork prices across south-eastern China in the past few years. Figure 2 compares the monthly figures given in the Ministry of Agriculture website since 2000 to ones from these other sporadic sources. This chart indicates that the ministry’s overall consolidated reports have somewhat underestimated the farm-gate prices in the south-east China region in recent years, particularly in the more recent, rising-demand situation.

A view of pig costs

Cost of production estimates for the same period obtained from local producer sources suggest that producing each kilogram of finisher pig in eastern China has increased from RMB7 in 2006 to a current RMB10. Of course, most of the rise is due to increased cereal feed costs. However, the rate of increase of pig production costs has not been as fast as for farm-gate prices, which are being pushed higher by the macro-factors of growing demand and lower supplies. This has meant that some pig units have achieved outstanding profit levels, even up to the equivalent of US$100 per pig marketed.

So it is really a great time to be an active major pig producer in China, unlike the situation in many other parts of the world at present. Note also that a typical production cost per kilogram in China can often be only half the amount found in Europe or the USA because of less expensive labor and lower charges for finance and taxation.

It should be made clear these prices and costs refer to the intensive, western-style farming sector. There are also over 40 local pig breeds in China, supplying a wide range of other pigmeat products. Any significant meat retail outlet in China will stock hams derived from Jinhua pigs alongside whole roast pigs of small Xiang breeds and the popular fatty pork obtained from various local breeds such as the Su Tai. While each of these products has a specific price structure, the overall level of their retail prices also is increasing rapidly. For example, the chi taw or whole pig-head skin product has increased from RMB10 to RMB15 in the past year.

A huge number of small pig farms still remain, now chiefly supplying local rural markets. Each of these rural backyarders typically sells only 5-10 pigs per year, usually earning RMB80-100 per pig. These comparatively low farm-gate prices are offset for the farmer and his family by the negligible feed costs (these pigs are fed waste products) and the strong asset protection provided by these livestock.

Feed strategies against molds
Possible pig feeding actions to deal with the mycotoxins in feed grains that are now suspected of damaging pigs’ immune systems as well as causing problems of low feed intake and retarded growth.

Clinical signs of mycotoxicosis in pigs and other farm animals represent only the tip of the iceberg regarding pig health and performance effects due to mycotoxins, warned Professor Johanna Fink-Gremmels from the veterinary faculty at Utrecht University, Netherlands.

Veterinary problems in a 250-sow Norwegian herd have demonstrated the destructive power of toxins from mouldy feed grains. In this case the answer took the form of a dietary treatment. Other possible solutions for pig units to deal with feed contamination issues were outlined recently to an international gathering of scientists specialised in mycotoxin control.

For a variety of reasons, the meeting heard, moulds and their toxic products are affecting an increasing quantity of feed ingredients worldwide. An assessment 2 years ago that mycotoxins could be found in at least 25% of all grains harvested seems now to be an under-estimate. Climate is thought to be one of the factors responsible, along with changes in farming practices and the growing of susceptible crops.

Pig producers in particular should be wary of a possible contamination in the feed diets they use. Speakers at the 3rd World Mycotoxin Forum, which took place at the end of last year in the Netherlands, were agreed that pigs are the most sensitive of the farm animal species in this respect. Five out of the 300 or more known types of mould toxin are regarded as most relevant to agriculture; the pig is rated first on sensitivity for each of them.

That view has been reinforced by scientific advice given to the European Union’s administrators by independent food safety agency EFSA, the forum was told. Referring to major toxins from the globally important fungal genus called Fusarium, it advised that pigs were significantly more sensitive than poultry or cattle to the effects of deoxynivalenol (usually abbreviated as DON) and zearalenone (ZON). Much the same was true for other Fusarium toxins known as fumonisins, for ochratoxin A (OTA) from an Aspergillus fungus and for alkaloids from ergot.

Clinical signs of illness are observed whenever any of these exceeds a threshold level in the pig’s diet. For example, the vomiting caused by DON has given it the common name of vomitoxin, but pigswill start to refuse feed and show retarded growth once its presence goes above 5-10 parts per million. ZON was described to the forum as the classic textbook model of how oestrogen receptors work. It has oestrogenic (hormonal) effects on puberty and fertility when present at more than 1-3ppm. OTA can give rise to kidney damage with a dietary level of just 200 parts per billion. Typically a European problem from contaminated wheat or barley, at higher concentrations this ochratoxin is blamed for a so-called porcine nephropathy in which the kidneys become shrunken and discoloured as well as losing their function.

One difficulty with any discussion of clinical signs and threshold levels, however, is that both sensitivity and effect are influenced by the age or production stage of the pig. Nursery pigs will be far more sensitive than a gestating or lactating sow for the impact of a Fusarium mycotoxin on their appetite, possibly because the sows have an instinctive drive to keep eating in order to fuel the development of their unborn piglets or their milk production after farrowing. Effects can also be delayed, such as the subsequent stillbirths from sows consuming moldy feed in pregnancy or the disrupted endocrine balance in gilts around puberty due to their consumption of zearalenone at an earlier stage.

See the rest of this article: Pig Feeds

Bridging in feed silos is identified as a difficulty that has started to appear more often on US grow-finish units, interrupting the supply of pig feeds to pens.

Nebraska research in the USA has identified a particular risk to the daily weight gain of growing pigs from even quite short interruptions in the feed supply from a bulk storage bin.

A research report published in the USA suggests that pig feeds are seeing shortages that are an increasing problem on American nursery and grow-finish facilities. Referring to the shortages as out-of-feed events, it says some of them are due to the mechanical failures suffered occasionally by any system for distributing pig feeds to pens. But it also points to additional disruptions due to human error affecting a delivery into the bulk storage silo and to the age-old difficulty of materials becoming bridged or stuck inside a bin so they do not flow to the out-take conveyor as desired.

More instances of bridging are being reported, the annual Swine Report from the University of Nebraska comments, as producers continue to reduce the fineness of grind for their complete feed diets in order to improve conversion. In addition to the obvious implications for pigs’ potential growth, the absences of feed resulting from bridging and other factors are a known cause of ulcers in pigs and are suspected of having links to an increased incidence of the haemorrhagic bowel syndrome and ileitis.

But the investigators in Nebraska wanted to check particularly on the longer-term consequences for growth performance from feed breaks on a unit with nursery and grow-finish places. Their earlier work, described in the university’s 2006 Swine Report, had found indications that the impact of an out-of-feed event could be greater for the growing pig than for one in the finishing phase of production. Testing in that instance had been of a period of 20 hours without feed on a random day in each week of a 16-week trial. Virtually all of the reduction in weight gain recorded for the full trial related to the first 8 weeks.

Subsequently, the examination has been widened to cover the more likely scenario in practice, involving temporary interruptions of the pig feed supply on varying occasions in their growing and finishing stages. The out-of-feed events were again staged to occur between midday and 08:00 the next day. Starting 37 days after weaning at 14-21 days old and extending for another 16 weeks, experimental groups had their feeder closed for these 20 hours up to 3 times every 2 weeks.

Once more, it seemed that the sensitivity of the pigs to intervals without feed was age-related. A linear relationship between feeder closures and growth response was detected only in the first 8 weeks of the trial. During that period, daily gain decreased in line with the increasing number of occasions on which feed supplies had been interrupted. Afterwards, however, growth showed no link to the number of out-of-feed events. Measurements across the full duration of the trial did not establish any effect on feed conversion or within-pen variability.

A more revealing pattern appeared when the researchers looked at feed intake patterns after feed supplies had been restored. Clues in this direction had already been seen in the 2006 work. Then, pigs missing feed on a random day each week increased their intakes by 14% in the first 24 hours following restoration during the first 8 weeks of the trial. But this increase soared to 42% in the second 8-weeks period. The testing described by the 2007 Nebraska Swine Report found that in the first 8 weeks even the most affected pigs (those having 2-3 intervals without feed every 2 weeks) responded by eating just 11-18% more in the next 24 hours. The following 8 weeks saw the equivalent groups adding 22-28% to their daily feed intake.

So the take-home message must be that you cannot expect growing pigs to compensate as much as finishing-stage animals for any temporary interruption in their feed supply. Speculation offered by the Nebraska team focuses on the capacity of the pig for taking in more feed. Perhaps the younger animal’s normal appetite is close to the maximum it can eat at any one time. As it ages, on the other hand, intake comes under the influence of a variety of factors and may be increased quite strongly in the short term to compensate for a previous feed-free period.

The scale of the potential impact at growing-pig level remains to be determined, however. The team observes that its out-of-feed events were rather regular for duration and therefore were possibly less influential than a sequence varying in length. Moreover, the timing of the events through the afternoon and at night did not correspond to an accepted view of pigs’ normal eating behaviour beginning around 06:00 and peaking at 14:00. On this basis, the experimental groups may have eaten before the feed break happened so that their response to it was less than if it had occurred, say, in the morning hours.

Nevertheless, there was a clear bottom-line result from the Nebraska testing. Fail to have feed in the bin or to extract it when required, this has indicated, and you will be risking a major drop in growth. Pigs in the trial that had an uninterrupted access to feed gained approximately 840 grams weight per day over the initial 56 days, in growing from about 18kg to 65kg liveweight. Those missing 3 feeding opportunities each 2 weeks over the same period managed only about 754g/day.

They were unable to eat enough to make up for lost ground once the feed supply was resumed.

The prices of pig feeds rise.

Continuing the search for possible responses by pig producers internationally to the effects of rising feed prices on their production costs.

What can producers do when pig feed prices rise? One of the first actions could be to look again at the feed ingredients and materials fed to their pigs.

Be aware that the case for using feed additives becomes even stronger whenever the cost of feeds increases, says Murray Hyden at ingredients supplier Agil, in an exclusive conversation for this issue of Pig International.

For example, he says, acidifiers show major benefits in terms of optimising gut health to provide digestive conditions that approach the pig’s genetic potential, improving feed efficiency and reducing mortality. They are also important in pig feeds that have a high buffering capacity, such as those used in lactation. A key application of acidifiers is to minimise bacterial numbers in the feed, lowering the risk of pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella and escherichia entering the animal.

“Protected acidifiers with fructo-oligosaccharides are especially important to young animals that have not achieved full immunocompetence, particularly weaned piglets up to 9 weeks old or animals recovering from antibiotic therapy,” he commented when interviewed at Agil’s head office in the UK. “They have a direct impact in the animal intestine. Their effect is to optimise the gut microflora and protect mucosal linings, while providing a healthy gut environment.”

More efficient pig feeding is vitally important at a time of high feed costs, he observes. All pig rations should contain antioxidants to preserve fats and oils, maintain palatability and generally maintain feed intake. Remember, too, how feed conversion rates can be damaged by the presence of mould factors in the diet. Including mycotoxin binders can reduce the severity of mycotoxicoses or even their occurrence and thereby safeguard both swine breeding and finishing performance.

“Other additives to bear in mind are the pellet binders included in cubed or pelleted feed. They have an important role to play in controlling feed costs on the pig unit, because they reduce losses due to dust or fine particles on the farm as well as at the feedmill and during transportation. Even a 1% reduction in losses from these so-called fines is valuable. It means saving one ton of feed in every 100 tons handled. I know this is obvious, but people forget!”

No pig farm is perfect, he adds. There are always opportunities to improve. Addressing any of the points mentioned will make improvements in feed efficiency that are more valuable than ever under today’s market conditions.