Page 586 of articles about news in Swine news

If Brussels doesn't help the crisis-hit Danish pig industry it will flood the European market causing a price collapse, farms commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has been told. Currently, countries producing mainly for the domestic market have seen an upturn, but countries such as Denmark, which depend on exports to third countries, are experiencing difficulties.

Decision 2008/185/EC lays down the additional guarantees relating to that disease for movements of pigs between Member States. Those additional guarantees are linked to the disease-status of the concerned Member States or regions thereof. The experience in implementing those guarantees has shown that it is necessary to clarify that the movement of pigs between Member States or regions thereof, which are free of Aujeszky’s disease and where vaccination is prohibited and which are listed in Annex I to Decision 2008/185/EC, does not require any additional guarantees.

Financial experts from leading cooperative banks met in Brussels last week to discuss agricooperatives’ access to finance and risk assessment. They concluded that agribusiness in general and agri-cooperatives in particular are well-placed to weather the current financial crisis, due to their business model being based on credibility, stability and a low-risk approach.

U.S. meat exports will be excluded from Mexico's tariff increases planned for 90 U.S. agricultural and industrial products, a spokesman from the Agriculture Ministry said on Tuesday. Mexico's national meat council confirmed that all meat products would be exempt from the new tariff rules.

European food labelling legislation, which included NFU amendments on country of origin labelling, has been postponed until the next Parliament as there are over 900 amendments.

Despite growing public support to ban the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in food animals, a U.S. representative said on Tuesday efforts to move legislation through Congress this year could be met with resistance. The bill, introduced in the House of Representatives by Louise Slaughter and in the Senate by Edward Kennedy, would ban the use of antibiotics important to human health from being used on cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry unless animals are ill.

An outbreak of African swine fever has been confirmed at a farm in southern Russia's Stavropol Region, the region's chief veterinary official said on Thursday.

A new report highlights a number of measures taken over the past three and a half years which reduce red tape for farmers, companies involved in the food business and administrations, and promise to reduce annual costs by hundreds of millions of euros , which will render European farming more competitive.

The Government of Canada is extending its support for hog farmers who have downsized their herds to cope with tough economic times. Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz today announced that the time period covered by the Cull Breeding Swine Program has been extended, which will provide more assistance to farmers.

The European Commission has launched a call for tender for a project "Inventory of certification schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs marketed in the EU Member States".

The revision of the regulation could contemplate mechanisms for the authorisation of storage systems for animal carcasses. (Original in Spanish. Read Google translation here).

The National Senate unanimously passed a modification to the Law 22,939 (Brand and identification). The modification permits safer and more modern methods to be applied than cutting the animal’s ear such as ear tags or tattoos which comply with international regulations, and also make the traceability of the food chain quicker. (Original in Spanish. Read Google translation here).

The European Commission wants its agriculture officials to swap their pinstripes and laptops for overalls and shovels in obligatory "farm stays" to help take policy-making back to the land.

The use of individual gestation accommodations (IGAs) for dry sows in commercial pork production is an issue that has generated intense public debate. In an effort to provide objective, scientific information on the subject, CAST is releasing this new Issue Paper, Scientific Assessment of the Welfare of Dry Sows Kept in Individual Accommodations. The international Task Force provides an authoritative review of the available scientific literature as well as expert opinion on the topic of overall humaneness of IGAs.

The Thai government’s committee for agricultural restructuring fund has approved a budget of THB 29.9 million (USD 829,093) for a project aimed at enhancing swine production efficiency and adding value to the animal. Of the amount, THB 25.12 million (USD 696,549) will be interest-free loans for farmers or farmer institutes to investment in facilities such as pig feed mill, competent farming system and technology or good-quality piglet production, while the rest would be for training and developing farmers’ ability and knowledge.

While the presence of salmonella in imported pig meat has decreased, the presence of this pathogen in Danish pig meat has increased slightly from 11.3% in 2007 to 11.9% in 2008. (Original in Danish. Read Google translation here).