Page 534 of articles about news in Swine news

Last Friday’s merger of the three Breton companies LT, BBO, and Piglays with the agricultural cooperative Terrena, has given rise to in Aveltis, uniting a total of 900 producers and 140, 000 sows.

The European Commission has approved 19 programmes in 14 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom) to provide information on and to promote agricultural products in the European Union.

This week the Mexican Secretary of Agriculture, Francisco Mayorga Castañeda, and the Russian Minister of Agriculture, Elena Skrinnik, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with hopes of increasing the commercial exchange of agricultural products between the two nations.

New EU rules on organic food labelling including the requirement to display the new EU organic logo, enter into force on 1 July, 2010. The so-called “Euro-Leaf” will now be obligatory on pre-packaged organic food products that have been produced in any of EU Member States and meet the necessary standards. Other private, regional or national logos will continue to appear alongside the EU label. The logo stays optional for non-packed and imported organic products.

Mrs Spelman announced that, as part of the review of Defra’s arms length bodies, the Commission for Rural Communities will be abolished, with a strengthened Rural Communities Policy Unit within Defra.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson today commended the House of Representatives for passing the conference report on the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (H.R. 4173).

The government with the Socialists, Socialist People's Party, Danish People's Party, Liberal Party and Unity signed a new four-year agreement on a continued effort to bacteria in food. There is allocated approx. 25 million kroner a year of effort, which is a strengthening relative to the previous action against Salmonella and Campylobacter. At the same time reinforced efforts against antibiotic resistant bacteria.

New legislation is needed to ensure fair returns to farmers and transparent prices to consumers, by enforcing fair competition throughout the food supply chain, said Agriculture Committee MEPs on Monday.

The ban on beef and pork shipments in Miyazaki Prefecture put in place because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease may be lifted this month because no new cases have been found since the slaughter of infected animals was completed last week.

Over the first four months of the year 2,438,000 piglets were exported and it is five percent more that during the same period of last year.

Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture, Rural Development, Fishing and Food, Francisco Mayorga Castañeda, and New Zealand’s Minister of Agriculture, David Carter, signed a Memorandum on Understanding.

Vietnam plans to increase its pig production by 18% to 32 million heads by 2013 through expansion of pig farming in the northern and central parts of the country, according to Nguyen Thanh Son, Deputy Director General of the Husbandry Department.

The Canadian Swine Health Board says the pork industry can learn a lot from an incident last week in which operations at a Canadian pork processing plant were temporarily suspended over fears of foot and mouth disease.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued draft guidance intended to help reduce the development of resistance to medically important antimicrobial drugs used in food-producing animals. The draft guidance outlines the FDA’s current thinking on strategies to assure that antimicrobial drugs that are important for therapeutic use in humans are used judiciously in animal agriculture. The FDA acknowledges the efforts to date by various veterinary and animal producer organizations to institute guidelines for the judicious use of antimicrobial drugs, but the agency believes additional steps are needed.

A study conducted by the consulting company Inventica revealed that in 2009 the volume of Russian production of pigs was 2,169 tons the slaughter weight, which is 6.2% more compared with the previous year.

Colombia's pending free trade agreement (FTA) with Canada has been finalized after passing a vote Monday night in the Canadian Senate, according to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.