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First-hand insight into pig farming around the world
Tuesday, 21 March 2023
Last October, we launched our series of international pig clubs to provide an opportunity to learn how the rest of the world produces pigs. Our aim was to find out if other countries face similar challenges to producers in the UK.
The first two webinars featured speakers from Brazil and Canada and were an overwhelming success. Next up is China, followed by Spain in June. These represent some of the largest pig-producing countries in the world.
The scale of the sow herds in some of these countries is staggering, with individual ownership in some cases more than the total size of the UK herd, and shows how small the UK pig industry is in comparison. But, as was highlighted during the session from Canada, the value of our industry in terms of production and the quality of exports gives us an impressive standing around the world. Quality over quantity seems to be a good indication of how British pork is perceived overseas.
During the Brazil-focused event, we spoke to Dr Guilherme Brandt, a vet and livestock consultant based in Paraná, Brazil, and for the Canadian insight we heard from Jim Long, President and CEO of Genesus Inc. They both gave us a first-hand account of their industrys, including the current issues they are facing.
The webinars have been informative and thought provoking and stimulated lots of discussion and questions from the audiences.
If you missed either of the first two events, you can catch up with the recordings via our YouTube channel.
The next international pig club will focus on China, it is taking place at 1pm on Monday 27 March and we will be joined by Michelle Hu, Deputy Secretary General of the China Meat Association.