Monday august 9 2010

Heat harvesting at Bedfordia

The Nuffield Pig Group walked the chain of Bedfordia Farms Ltd; the breeding herd, the associated finisher site and the successful Biogen site.

After pinching myself to remind myself I was still in the English countryside and not in Holland I was blown away by the level of investment in the breeding herd.

I was lucky enough to visit the Sterskel research centre in Eindhoven, Holland, last year, with my south-west training group and many of the principles and building styles have been adopted and delivered here by G E Baker very successfully.

One of the obvious pay-backs invested in is the heat harvesting system. Heat is taken from the weaner buildings and put through a heat exchanger at 1:5.

It reaches 35 degrees through the Lamel radiators, and then is pressurised to get the temperature to 50 degrees before it is circulated through the farrowing rooms to be used in the heat mats. This has reduced energy use by 50 percent energy with a short payback.

monday august 2 2010

Bacon with passion

If you are ever passing Bedford on the A6 pop into the Woburn Country Foods farm shop and pick up some of their award winning black bacon.

Owner Andy Davies was kind enough to show the Nuffield Pig Group round the shop and the processing plant.

The family used to keep pigs, and added value through a farm shop and butchery.

The retail business grew and grew. The pigs have since gone and the business focuses on providing foodservice outlets, including restaurants and pubs.

The Nuffield Pig Group was impressed by the passion the team had for its products. There are some fabulous bacon cures on the bacon, something I had never seen in practice before.

Woburn Foods have secured two contracts with hospitals in London wanting British produce on the menu, a really positive move.

The group were happy to see they had stopped sourcing Danish bacon as their standard bacon and have managed to secure English bacon at the same price as the Danish.

It is great to hear we have units out there that are competitive with our con tinental neighbours!

WEDNESDAY JULY 28, 2010

Why image matters

I attended my first Nuffield Pig Group day, and it was an excellent introduction to the ongoing network of pig scholars that I have become part of.

The group, which was chaired by Chris Fogden and organised by Wendy Houston, attended an excellent day of visits followed by a session of presentations from current Nuffield Scholars Richard Hooper and Andrew Freemantle.

Further overviews of the industry were provided by Richard Longthorp and Mike Varley. All four talks led to lots of discussion.

One thing that really stuck out for me was the visit to Bedfordia and Richard Longthorp's talk on professionalism.

Bedfordia's breeding and feeding sites gave the image of professionalism through well-kept grounds, clean sites and good staff facilities.

Richard's talk covered our demonstrative aim to achieve professionalism through trained staff.

When thinking about the image we portray as a pig industry we should always remember that the consumer will judge a book by its cover and some farms in all sectors can let the professional image down.

Sunday April 11, 2010

We meet a confident group in Penn State

Nuffield Scholars met up with the Young Growers Association of Pennsylvania which started as a small group of next-generation fruit growers with common problems and interests and has spread to a nationwide success.

The Young Growers Association provides a social network for young growers between the ages of 18 and 40. They have been running since 2006 and were a very confident group who were happy to talk about their businesses and their issues as the next generation.

The Nuffield group were very impressed by the idea of a young group of like-minded people in the farming industry having such a good structure.

I thought I could not let this go by without telling them that the United Kingdom pig industry were way ahead of them.

The profile and objectives of Young NPA and the Young Growers Association are very similar.

However they have talked about extending their age limit which I warned them of, although I know that means I don’t have many more years, as Young NPA’s age limit is 35.

It is important to keep it as young as possible as there are plenty of opportunities for all ages to meet up at other groups such as pig discussion groups and BPEX pig clubs.

They did however get one over on us, which was the study tour to New Zealand they did last year —14 days, 14 visits!

Friday April 3, 2010

Banana boost

A Thai farm I visited fed bananas to weaners, which the piglets seemed to love but unfortunately the prebiotic and polysaccharide story did not stack up to the British nutritionist we were with.

The piglets did like them but maybe the sugar rush was too steep, so potentially no benefit at all, apart from it got rid of a lot of waste bananas!

Wednesday March 31, 2010

Rice cones

At 34 degrees outside you would think a cone is a good idea — but not an ice cream cone a traffic cone on this Thai pig unit.

The cones were up-ended for cheap and affective feeders and filled each day with 6kg of meal (rice bran and cassava based).

This feed was then dropped over the course of the day, on average three times, when sows required it.

As all the sows, dry and farrowing, were under one roof. It allowed each sow to be fed at the required level and amount whatever the stage of lactation.

At labour costs of £150 per month for the Cambodian and Burmese staff who worked on the unit, having someone walk through three times was also a cheap option but they felt the cones caused less chaos than trolley rounds, and three times a day is a must at 34 degrees outside.

There was no curve as such but the little and often demand-based feed strategy seemed to be working as the sows looked in fantastic condition.

Tuesday March 30, 2010

In the heat of the day

How to keep our sows cool? If the summer of 2010 is going to beat the summer of 1976 perhaps we could look to tropical pig production for inspiration. There were main ways of cooling the sows on the units I visited in Thailand.

EVAPORATIVE COOLING

High levels of water used for cooling. Farrowing sows all had drip coolers, and half open-sided barns. Dry sows had deep water troughs in front of them which they were able to overflow on demand and cool themselves, combines with fully open-sided barns and lovely views!

BUILDING DESIGN

High pens with large air flows through the sides, ends and underneath. Fully slatted systems allowed further airflow again.

AIR COOLING SYSTEM

Remoulded cardboard with water flowing through it cooled the air coming in with fans at the opposite end. The air was effectively cooled. There seemed to be a 30 meter rule on this system but the environment inside was cool and pleasant to all. This installation looked to be inexpensive. This unit required no other cooling systems for farrowing sows.

Grower and finisher pen floors were solid concrete with purpose-made water wallows at the back of the pens. The pigs loved them but they were renamed the “swine dysentery spreading machines”. Even though water was changed once a day hygiene would be hard to up hold in these units with a high level of infectious diseases. Stocking densities varied, more pigs used the wallows the more highly stocked they were.

Saturday March 27, 2010

So what will we look like in ten years' time?

By looking at global growth, niche successes and failures and future feeding strategies and likely changes in legislation for pigs, is it possible to understand what the United Kingdom pig industry will look like in ten years time?

Okay, ten years may seem a long way off, especially when you consider how much has changed in the last ten years for our industry as a whole, and for individual units.

EXPANDING RAPIDLY

From a global prospective Brazil, Russia and China are expanding their commodity pork markets rapidly and making huge investments. Pork to China is America’s seventh-largest export market and the European Union also relies on China to complete the carcass balance. So what happens when China becomes near self-sufficient?

In addition Brazil has released forecasts driven by exports and Russia has recently invested £500m in pork processing facilities.

So where does our small but passionate industry fit into global pork production? One thing that must be remembered is “local” is still on the top of shoppers' agendas, so is high welfare, and so is quality.

HEARTS AND MINDS

But is this going to continue to be our market? Will it be our market in ten years' time? And how can we embrace all British production systems into shoppers' hearts and minds, to dissuade them from buying cheap imports that are available at very different welfare standards.

This BPEX/Merial Nuffield Scholarship will provide me with the opportunity to travel to North America to understand some of the recent problems they have experienced especially in some so-called 'commodity niche' markets, which include omega-3 pork.

I also intend visiting expanding countries such as China and Brazil to find out what efficiencies they are embracing to turn 50 percent of the world's pork production from back-yard production to low-cost efficiency.

I will aim to attend trade shows and exhibitions to gain knowledge of new products and innovations.

STILL THE FONT OF WELFARE KNOWLEDGE

When it comes to welfare and niche systems, Britain is still the font of knowledge so I will also visit and interview pig producers who are investing in the future, positioning themselves in the market, and I will look at what research is being carried out that welfare lobbyists may be interested in.

This Nuffield should be a two-way project with the industry. I'm doing it for the industry. So if you have anything you particularly want me to investigate, please email me.

NUFFIELD PIG GROUP...

Heat exchange at Bedfordia Farms.

Bedfordia's breeding and feeding sites give the image of professionalism through well-kept grounds, clean sites and good staff facilities.

IN PENN STATE...

Telling the Young Growers Association about Young NPA.

IN THAILAND...

Bananas for weaners — but does it stack up nutritionally? No.

Traffic cones are used as feeders.

Above: The BPEX pig in Thailand.

Above: Dry sows with fully open sides.

Above: Drip coolers in the farrowing house.

Above: 'Swine dysentery spreading machines'.

Above: Half-sided barns.