Page 612 of articles about news in Swine news

Massachusetts, New York and Florida firm recalls fresh pork products due to possible dioxin contamination.

After examining 22,700 batches of animal feed in the country, only 2.39 percent were found with excessive melamine content, the National Feed Office, under the Ministry of Agriculture.

The Russian Economic Development Ministry said Friday it raised the import quota for pork in 2009 to 531,900 metric tons from 493,500 metric tons in 2008.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a new regulation yesterday exempting an estimated 118,500 tons of hazardous waste annually from strict federal incineration controls, and it separately exempted factory farms from a requirement to report hazardous air pollution to the federal government.

South Africa’s Department of Agriculture announced it was suspending imports of all meat and dairy products from the European Union due to the discovery of dioxin in Irish meat products.

The commendation came in the midst of the government's initiative to test local hogs from Mindanao for the possible presence of the Ebola Reston virus on pork and pork products.

The Chinese import authorities have now signed a protocol with the Danish Ministry of Food and Agriculture about Danish export of heat-treated pork products to China.

The European Commission has approved measures to provide information on, and to promote agricultural products in third countries. They are targeted at Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan and North America. The products covered are wine, fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy products and PDO and organic products.

With the start of the 2008-2009 crop year, the Canadian Grain Commission eliminated the use of Kernel Visual Distinguishability (KVD) as a registration criteria for wheat and introduced a new general purpose wheat class. Pork producers had been calling for the elimination of KVD for a long time and he considers the change extremely important for the swine industry. This will allow varieties that previously would not have met KVD and therefor would not have been allowed to be released to move forward and be licensed.

Lower mortality and more pigs finished per sow per year have given the British pig industry a boost, but it still remains one of the highest cost producers according to the latest BPEX publication.

A contingency fund of €180m to cover losses by processors and farmers arising out of Irish pork dioxin crisis will enable companies to recommence slaughtering and processing.

In 2007, estimated U.S. per capita total red meat and poultry consumption (retail weight basis) was 221.3 pounds per person, a record amount. However, contraction in the hog and poultry industries during the fourth quarter combined with lower slaughter cattle numbers suggests total per capita consumption will be down in 2008.

Q-PorkChains, an EU funded project of the EU 6th Framework Program and the largest project which is engaged in meat science, aims at setting up additional pilot and demonstration activities. New industry partners will be integrated via a competitive call in the first part of 2009 (March till May 2009) to test the most promising innovations deriving from the project.

The Member States of the European Union today voted unanimously in favour of a proposal to introduce a specific private storage aid scheme for pigmeat produced in Ireland. This EU-funded storage scheme, backed at today's Management Committee, will involve only meat coming from pigs reared in Ireland on farms not affected by contaminated feed. Under the aid scheme, a maximum of 30,000 tonnes of pigmeat can be stored for a period of up to 6 months.

The Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP) assessed the supplementary information supplied by the applicant on the impurities of L-valine. It concluded that there are no safety concerns resulting from the use of the additive L-valine in all animal species with a minimum content in the dry matter of 98 % L-valine and unidentified impurities of less than 1 %.

The European Commission has agreed a Communication that aims to improve the functioning of the food supply chain in order to lower prices for consumers. The prices of food have come down significantly from record levels earlier this year but the underlying causes for the surge in agricultural commodity prices in the medium-term -including regulatory restrictions, insufficient competition and speculation – have not disappeared and must be dealt with.