Blog: Pig clubs have plenty to offer

For those who I have not had the pleasure to meet, I am one of AHDB’s knowledge exchange managers for pork, covering the south and central region.

This year, my autumn pig clubs run from late October through to December, and they offer an excellent opportunity for producers to catch up with and meet others working nearby. They are all face-to-face events of an evening, so it means I will be travelling between Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Wiltshire to meet those active in the pig industry, something that has been my area of interest for decades.

I find the clubs offer a much more relaxed and social atmosphere compared with meetings held on farms, and as such the conversations are different.

If I am going to an office, I will turn up with an agenda and arguably get more from an individual farmer about specific topics. But the interaction with like-minded producers at a pig club helps join the dots and allows everyone to get a clearer understanding of the bigger picture. Discussions can go in any direction, no topic is off the table – even the proposed levy increase.

If you are on our database, you will be notified of the meetings closest to you. There is the added draw of a dinner, but if even that is not enough, there will be presentations and Q&As as well.

In this autumn series, we will be sharing details from a new indoor farrow-to-finish pig unit, talking about pig health, exploring the use of genetics to strengthen your herd and looking at the impact of pig rations on carbon values. All I ask is that you reserve your place so we can keep tabs on numbers of guests.

If you can attend one of the nights when we are presenting on the farrow-to-finish unit, Ben Golledge, a production manager in the south-west, will share pictures and details of his new dry sow house, the service house and the farrowing house. He will talk about their sow management pre- and post-weaning and explain the feeding regime in the farrowing house and how they use milk cups. As with all of our events, there will also be a market update from one of our analysts.

There are similar meetings in the spring and, as I mentioned previously, we offer national and international events too, which are based online.

One of the highlights this year was when we looked at Mexican pig production and consumption. My counterpart in the east of England, Andrew Palmer, hosted a webinar during which he was joined by Gonzalo Rivero, Pig and Poultry Director at Zoetis UK. It was interesting to hear about many aspects of pig production, including staffing, marketing, public perceptions, health issues and government support.

You can watch proceedings in our event archive, where there are also recordings of other international pig clubs focusing on Brazil, Canada, China and Spain. So, no matter what time of the year it is, there is a pig club you could be catching up with.

If you have any questions about the events, please get in touch.

The remaining pig club meetings for 2023 are:

27 November: Presentation on a new indoor farrow-to-finish unit (Exeter)

5 December: The impact of pig diets on carbon values (Salisbury)

11 December: Presentation on a new indoor farrow-to-finish unit (Oxford)