Page 561 of articles about news in Swine news

The House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday passed the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 with an amendment that would exempt meat, poultry, eggs and the farms and facilities that produce and process them exclusively.

Because food is a basic necessity, the agriculture sector is showing more resilience to the global economic crisis than other industries. But the risks could increase if the economic downturn deepens, according to a new report by the OECD and FAO.

The nation's biggest hog farmer and pork processor said it is reducing the size of its own sow herd by another 3% after cutting the number of breeding females by 10% in fiscal 2009.

A brainstorming meeting of scientists, risk assessors and risk managers on the influenza A(H1N1) at the human animal interface organised by the Commission with the support of ECDC and EFSA took place on 9 June 2009 in Brussels. It focused on the potential risks posed by that virus at the interface between humans and animals. Scientists from the public health, animal health and food safety field from the EU, USA, Canada and Russia attended the meeting.

The Welsh Assembly will not be introducing a National Envelope scheme – a provision which would have seen the redirection of 10 per cent of the Single Farm Payment allocated to farmers.

The deputy head of the Husbandry Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nguyen Xuan Duong, said according to the Viet Nam Livestock Development Strategy until 2020, the nation aimed to increase the proportion of livestock products in the agriculture sector to 42 per cent by 2020.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) have published today a joint Scientific Report on methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in livestock, pets and foods.

Canadian farmers and exporters now have new market opportunities in Mongolia for beef, cattle and swine and their products. Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz made the announcement yesterday after meeting with Mongolia's Minister for Food, Agriculture and Light Industry, the Honourable Tunjin Badamjunai.

In order to assist pork producers in Minnesota to demonstrate their commitment to consumers and the general public, University of Minnesota Extension has teamed up with the Minnesota Pork Board to provide training and certification sessions for producers to become individually certified in Pork Quality Assurance Plus (PQA+) and Transport Quality Assurance (TQA) programs.

After meeting with Russian Minister of Agriculture Elena Elena Skrynnik, Brasilian Minister Reinhold Stephanes announced Russia’s government decision of enabling meat processing plants from Santa Catarina State to export meat products to Russia. (Original in Portuguese. Read Google translation here).

During April over 640,000 weaners were exported — a staggering increase of 61 percent on April last year. Total export of piglets during the first four months of this year are up over 40 percent on the same period last year.

The OIE has reported 3 new outbreaks of classical swine fever in Rio Grande Do Norte and 1 in Amapá. The three new outbreaks in Rio Grande Do Norte were detected by the surveillance programme and have an epidemiological link with the "Jucurutu 1" outbreak, where animals from the farm considered to be the index farm were introduced. All farms are for self-consumption or local trade. The State of Rio Grande do Norte is located outside the area declared at a national level as free of classical swine fever. The Animal Health Department has approved the vaccination of all pigs of the State of Rio Grande do Norte. Vaccination remains prohibited in the rest of the country. In Amapaá, the affected farm, of a traditional type, is for self-consumption. The State of Amapá is located outside the area declared at a national level as free of classical swine fever. Surveillance and epidemiological investigation are continuing.

Figures from TNS Worldpanel show in the 52-weeks May 08-09 household spending on fresh and frozen meat was almost nine percent higher, with pork sales proving the most buoyant.

Fertiliser prices have soared over the last three years and, though nitrogen and phosphate prices have fallen recently, interest in making best use of manures and saving on fertiliser inputs remains at a high level. Conventional laboratory analysis of manures is expensive, slow and, for solids, can give unreliable results. NIRS has greatly improved precision and reliability in the analysis of forages and is now routinely used for the analysis of silage and grain.

Danish pigmeat exports dropped over 12 percent in January and February. Exports to other European Union countries were particularly badly hit, with the biggest falls being to the United Kingdom, and Italy.

Total meat exports were up 38.3% in 2008, driven primarily by a 43.9% increase in exports of lamb to £263.0m and a 69.3% rise in exports of beef to £212.7m. British pork also enjoyed a resurgence in 2008, with exports climbing by 52.6% to a value of £134.6m. Key to this growth was a jump of 52.6% in pork exports to Germany, which is now the UK’s number one market, worth £48.8m. Sausage exports also continued to grow, up 19.5% to £13.8m.