Page 527 of articles about news in Swine news

A sustained decline in the value of sterling combined with the economic downturn and severe difficulties in the global dairy market created unprecedented challenges for Irish food and drink exporters in 2009, according to Bord Bia’s Export Performance and Prospects report launched today. The value of Irish food and drink exports declined by 12 percent last year, or by just under €1 billion, to stand at €7.12 billion.

During the last year the average base price of the MPB (Marché du Porc Breton) for a pig was 1.146 €, which represents a decrease of 9.3%. Specialists consider this year to be unique since not only did prices fall but there was also a fall in production.

The government has announced it is to begin consulting on the creation of a body to oversee supermarkets’ relationships with suppliers.

An outbreak of FMD was reported by the Republic of Korea on Jan. 6, 2010. As such, the country is no longer considered to be free of FMD.

Following interventions by the Commission Belarus has lifted all temporary import restrictions, imposed on animals and animal products from certain EU Member States, based on measures due to pandemic H1/N1 influenza virus.

The results for the agri-food trade balance for December 2009 in Brazil were the best ever for December with a surplus of 3,975 million dollars.

In European Union Member States, most of the biomass of Trichinella parasites is circulating among wildlife and many human infections originate from the consumption of untested game meat. Annually, hundreds of millions of fattening pigs test negative for Trichinella in the European Union. The preliminary harmonised monitoring scheme proposed in this report relies on compartmentalisation to identify regions and categories of animals at lower risk of Trichinella infection in which reduced testing could be carried out.

The frozen meat and poultry sector grew by 2.1% in value last year and is now worth just under £563m.

U.S. farmers produced the largest corn and soybean crops on record in 2009, according to the Crop Production 2009 Summary released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

During summer 2009, Ukraine announced new inspection requirements which put European exports of animals and animal products at risk. These requirements were scheduled to enter into force on 14 January 2010. The European Commission immediately expressed concerns on this proposed measure and held co-operative and constructive discussions with the Ukrainian authorities. Early in January 2010 Ukraine announced the cancellation of its proposed inspection requirements.

Capitol officials have put to premium public health and safety as they passed on first reading the proposed “pro-active measure” Ordinance that puts in place stringent regulation in the establishment of livestock farms, such as piggery and poultry.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) announced it would launch a study into the role of meat in climate change.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has updates to Attachment 1 for FSIS Directive 7120.1.

According to figures from Coop de France Nutrition animale/Snia, the production of animal feed has suffered a reduction of 5.6% during the third quarter of 2009, although this reduction is not as big as that observed in the two previous quarters in which the decreases were by 7.7% and 7.2%.

Poultry production in 2009 increased by 318,000 tonnes, while red meat by 550,000 tonnes.

The prices for clean pigs in 2008 were on average 15% higher than in 2007. The average reference price amounted to € 1.43 per kg.