Pig co-op looks to cut disease

In collaboration with specialist pig vet David Strachan, veterinary investigation officer with SAC at Aberdeen - and with grant aid from both SEERAD and QMS - the co-op has begun a two-year project which involves co-ordinating health audits on a number of units and following through with checks at the processing end.

Useful information is already being gleaned from the exercise and co-op chairman Ian Bartlet told the annual meeting at Oldmeldrum this week that the board was determined to pursue any avenues likely to give members a marketing edge.

He said: "This exciting project underlines the benefits of co-operation. Once the information is collated and interpreted, the next stage will be to select two farms and then attempt to eradicate disease from these units."

Recent pig health scares in other parts of the UK have prompted most Scottish producers to tighten bio-security still further in recent months, but Strachan told the meeting that the best insurance possible was to operate a closed herd policy.

"Bringing in live pigs is such a big risk, even with good quarantine and isolation procedures in place," he said.

"When you factor in semen, vaccines, the wildlife reservoir, transport and machinery and the human element, the risk soars still further.

"Scotland has a much-envied high health status and its protection is vital."

Farmers countrywide have taken to high-pressure power-washing as one of their best defences, but he added that pressure-washing without disinfecting was risky. At high pressure, the risk of aerosol spread of viruses - and therefore spread of disease - is high.

On the marketing front, co-op managing director Gordon McKen revealed encouraging results from trials with Grampian Country Pork at Buckie to produce heavier carcasses, more in line with those being produced by competitors in mainland Europe.

"Members’ average carcass weight is currently in the 73-75kg deadweight range, but several producers have demonstrated that they are able to increase weights by 10kg to achieve a target of 85kg without loss of quality," he said.

"We will now investigate how many of these pigs are wanted by the processors and proceed accordingly."

Despite the difficulties posed by foot-and-mouth , Grampian Pigs had a successful year, marketing finished pigs, cull sows, boars and weaners to the value of 29.87 million for members during the last financial year to 31 December, just marginally down on the previous year’s 29.95 million. A 5.5 per cent drop in throughput was offset by an increase of 3.25 kg in pig weights and by an increased average pig price - up 3.6ppk deadweight on the 2000 price.

Problems with cull sow carcases were overcome during 2001 and, with significant numbers now exported directly from Scottish processors, the chairman urged members to support the companies involved to ensure that these markets were long-term.

The co-operative’s aim is to break even each year, with all profits transferred to members. Last year saw a surplus of 10,713.