Dear readers,
Beside the mostly increasing pig and piglet prices, some more good news:
- The Vall Companys Group, Spain’s leading pig industry integrator, has introduced a bonus for its sow farm production centers. The integrating company will share part of its profits with the earliest part of its value chain, the sow farm production centers. This variable-remuneration contract can represent an increase of up to 20% in income for the integrated farmer.
- In the U.K. Sainsbury’s and Cranswick have unveiled a new 10-year partnership to support British pork producers that will include an estimated £50m to help the deliver higher standards, including moving to flexible farrowing pens. According to the statements new long-term contracts for the 170 ‘trusted farmers’ in the Sainsbury’s Pork Producer Group would “give them the reassurance needed to invest in farms, factories and procedures, building resilience for the future”. All Sainsbury’s British pork, sausages, premium bacon and gammon and cooked meats supplied through Cranswick. Sainsbury’s estimates that it will invest £50 million to implement extra space for the sows and piglets, alongside investment in the introduction of AI technology to allow for 24/7 monitoring of the animals by 2030, with an additional £11 million being invested by Cranswick to help build the new sheds and housing for the pigs.
- According to the new Danish Crown (DC) CEO the cooperative is launching an initiative to combat the shortage of slaughter pigs in the country, investing in the construction of new fattening barns and lease them to pig farmers through a lease-to-own model. The barns will have a capacity of at least 5,000 pigs, units of 10,000 fattening pigs are preferred. Upon completion, the barns will be leased to a farmer for a period of 15 years. The farmer will then have the option to purchase the site.
Events calendar:
- Agrofood Nigeria is a trade fair held regularly at the Landmark Centre in Lagos since 2015. It serves as a central hub for business relationships and networking in sectors like agriculture, livestock breeding, food technology, beverages, and packaging in Nigeria. It takes place on 3 days from Tuesday, 25.03.2025 to Thursday, 27.03.2025 .
- Expo ANTAD in Guadalajara is the premier trade fair for the retail, gastronomy, and hospitality sectors in Mexico and across Latin America. This year the Expo takes place on 3 days from Tuesday, 25.03.2025 to Thursday, 27.03.2025.
Ambiguity
I started to write this articles 5 years ago. It was the time of Covid crisis, almost all normal activities were impossible to perform, everybody was looking for some guidance, reasons for hope. It was an unforeseen situation, no one was prepared for this size of a pandemic.
Now we see something similar developing in the animal husbandry sector.
A resurgence of African swine fever(A.S.F.) has been confirmed in the Dominican Republic in the municipality of El Pino, following the death of several animals. This area is very close to the border with Puerto Rico, officially part of the United States. What will happen if the ASF will close the border? Will countries ban pork from the U.S.? Uncertain.
The Trump administration announce a trade war with some of the major business partners of the U.S.: Canada, China, Mexico. It so happens, that this states are also very important for the pig industry. Tariffs are announced and postponed every day. Everything is volatile.
The foot and mouth disease(FMD) eruption in Germany perturbated the pork industry trough Europe, due to the lack of export options for the more than self-sufficient German pig industry. The case is closed and German pig prices are set to rise, probably with 10 cents for the next week. But FMD appeared in Hungary 2 weeks ago, perturbating the flow of live animals and meat in the direction of the not self-sufficient East of Europe. Just when the case seemed to be solved and most of the bans lifted, a new FMD outbreak has been declared in Slovakia, very close to the Hungarian outbreak. Everything is complex.
At the end of the cold war the U.S. military colleges developed a new management tool. There is not anymore only one enemy, we need to be prepared for anything, so the VUCA management has been developed. The acronym stays for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity.
We live in the time of ambiguity.
