Finding Latest Feed Info
Grain prices over the past week have fallen amid pressure from outside markets, falling crude oil prices and bearish US grain crop area estimates from the USDA.

Soyabean futures prices have dropped back from the highs in mid June, with September nearby prices closing at £218/t on Thursday 9 July, down £43 on a week earlier. In the latest HGCA feed ingredients price survey, FEMAS soyameal, ex-mill Liverpool, was quoted at £318.50/t for July delivery.
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Marketing News

Jimmy’s Sausage and Beer Festival
Jimmy’s Farm is holding a Sausage and Beer festival on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th August. The event is designed to bring together the best British sausage producers and to celebrate the wonderful sausage. If you would be like to help promote the great British Sausage and are a free range sausage producer who’d like to exhibit or enter the competition please contact kate@jimmysfarm.com or go to www.jimmysfarm.com  The event includes: sausage making, cookery demos, live music, kids’ entertainment, sausage eating competition, spinny pig, sausage judging panel to select best sausage, beer judging panel to select best beer, sausage and beer producers from around the UK.

Recipes by Chefs For Chefs
To help chefs deliver a range of tempting pork dishes all year round, BPEX has devised a recipe book in conjunction with six of the country’s top regional chefs.   Each chef has created a delicious pork dish for each season using an array of pork cuts that offer excellent value for money. The 24 recipe ideas use a selection of fruits and vegetables that are at their very best and in abundant supply during spring, summer, autumn and winter.  As well as recipe ideas the ‘Pork – the meat for all seasons’ book also highlights the many pork cuts available and offers advice on sourcing Quality Standard pork. It is available for chefs to order from August. Visit www.porkforcaterers.com.

Eating Out on Pork and Sausages
A new Foodservice category report has recently been published.  It includes information on the type of pork dishes being eaten out of the home and the effects that the current economic climate has had on eating out.  Plus information on the range of processed pork products that are offered as a menu choice including sausages.  To download a copy, click here.

Knowledge Transfer

Tip of the Week – Respiratory Disease
With summer now upon us, look out for respiratory disease, erysipelas and coccidiosis. See Action for Productivity 6 (EP) and 19 (PRDC) for management guidelines and things to look out for.

A Breath of Fresh Air!
It’s official… we’ve just had a heat wave! Great for us, but what about the pigs? How do pigs keep cool? In many ways they are just like us, when they feel too warm they reduce feed intake, look for room to spread out and rest, enjoy a cooling dip or shower and sitting in a gentle breeze.

Now is a good time to review how well your pigs performed during the last couple of warm weeks. Are sale weights lower through the reduced feed intakes and growth rates? Are you seeing dirtier pens and/or more evidence of vices?

If so, what can you do? Ideally, try to reduce the stocking density, especially among the heavier pigs, and ensure that water flow rates are at the recommended rates. Where you have large straw yards consider reducing the amount of bedding and use a simple drum fan to introduce some air movement and assist with cooling. This is especially effective if you can also provide them with the opportunity to wet their skin through a good sprinkler system or lying on wet concrete. Cooling the air with water vapour is also an option (see a video clip of this in action). Whatever you do, keep a check on the daily temperature variation to ensure that pigs are not too cold during the night!

The producer using the set-up illustrated in the video and photo is using a combination of water vapour to cool the air without causing dampness and a drum fan to provide air movement. As he so aptly said the other day, “These fans saved our bacon last week!” More information on heat stress can be found in Action for Productivity 3 and 4.

High Flying Managers Wanted
BPEX is looking for new managers across the industry to take part in the first BPEX Management Development Programme. The scheme, which starts in January 2010, will run over 12 months and provide the participants with the opportunity to develop their management potential and overall understanding of pig production. Similar courses have proven not only to benefit the individual but also their company. BPEX also believes the wider industry will benefit from such a scheme.

Completing the course will involve attending a number of training sessions over the course of a year. Each session will consist of an evening presentation focusing on a particular sector of the industry, followed by a day of management training delivered by Cedar Associates. In addition, work-based projects relevant to your current role will need to be completed.

Successful completion of the course will result in a nationally recognised qualification from the Institute of Leadership and Management. Your background and qualifications will not be the focus of selection, it’s your potential and ambition that are key. So if you are looking for a new challenge, contact Tess Howe, BPEX Skills Development Manager for an information pack and application form 07779 321078.

Hunt For New Ideas
Rekindling the entrepreneurial spirit in UK pig producers and helping them put new ideas into practice – that’s the aim of the BPEX Innovation Fund.

The initiative has already provided thousands of pounds to enable producers, often in partnership with the allied industry, to develop projects they believe will make life easier and more profitable.

Applications for funding are judged on innovation, industry need, value for money and industry impact. Each of the successful projects would be used as a case study to spread the knowledge gained to other producers.

Individual applicants for Innovation Fund support must be BPEX levy payers and applicant groups should contain at least one BPEX levy payer. For further information, visit the website or contact your local KT Manager kt@bpex.org.uk. Application forms can also be downloaded from the BPEX website.

National News:

Supply Chain Code of Conduct Nears
Brussels is moving inexorably closer to clipping the wings of large retailers such as Tesco and Asda. In a move that could make producer and processor dealings with retailers less one-sided, it has today announced it will make food supply chain pricing and contractual arrangements more transparent. And in due course it will introduce a supply chain code of conduct.

The measures were announced today by European Commssion vice-president Gunter Verheugen, agriculture commissioners Mariann Fischer Boel and health and consumer commissioner Meglena Kuneva.

A “roadmap” of initiatives has been agreed. It includes the following:

• Improve transparency of the fixing of prices and contractual arrangements along the food supply chain.
• Carry out a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis of the European agrifood industry in the global market.
• Set up a social dialogue in the agrifood industry.
• Develop educational programmes to raise awareness of the importance of the agrifood industry.
• Set up a European forum with the aim, eventually of adopting a Europe-wide supply chain code of conduct.
• Launch a study on the effects of retailers' own brands on the competitiveness of the agrifood industry, in particular on small and medium-sized companies. (Source: NPA website)

Tackling Salmonella On-Farm
BPEX has carried out an evaluation of the effectiveness, costs and benefits, of three different interventions undertaken on-farm seeking to reduce the prevalence of Salmonella. To see the full report, click here.

New Animal Health Advisory Group
Defra’s Food and Farming Minister Jim Fitzpatrick has announced the establishment of a group which is being set up to advise on how best to develop a new independent body for animal health. He also announced that Rosemary Radcliffe will chair the joint industry and Government working group.

International News

EU Report on Food Chain
The High Level Group on the Competitiveness of the Agro-Food Industry Group was set up last year and brought together Member States as well as senior policy makers from the agro-food industry, civil society and professional associations. Their task was to identify and address issues that determine the competitiveness of the European agro-food industry. They have just published their report which provides a three-page analysis on the key Facts of the Food Supply Chain.

Here are some highlights:

• The overall production value of the European food supply chain is higher than in benchmark countries, such as US, Australia or Canada.
• The food industry comprises numerous, varied activities from milling (cereals) to butchering (livestock) and consists of approximately 310,000 companies not only operating at local and regional level but also on the world market. 
• Larger companies account for only 0.9% of all food and drink companies, but they provide 51.5% of the turnover, 52.9% of the added value and contribute to 37% of the employment. Therefore, large companies account by far for the largest share of turnover and employment.
• Agricultural cooperatives are an important socio-economic reality in the EU countries (There exist 26,000 cooperative companies which employ almost 700,000 workers and have a turnover of more than 250 billion Euros, a figure that equates to more than 50% of the production, transformation and commercialisation of agrarian products.). 
• The retail sector is increasingly characterised by large food retailers and cross-border retail chains. Following a period of consolidation, the current degree of concentration in the EU food retail sector seems relatively high: in most Member States the five largest retailers' chains account for over 50% of the market. In all Member States with the exception of Sweden food retail space has increased as has the number of large retail stores (i.e. hypermarkets, supermarkets and discounters).
• Europe is the largest exporter as well as importer of food and drink products, with a positive trade balance (€3.7 billion in 2006) excluding intra-community trade. France and the Netherlands are the largest EU exporters, while the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain are the largest importers.
  The full report is available by clicking here.

Russian Import Suspension
Russia will suspend imports of pork products from Smithfield Packing Company's Smithfield, Va., slaughter facility effective July 15, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said.

Certificates can be signed for pork originating from this establishment through July 14, Product must be loaded on ship by July 14, the agency said. FSIS gave no indication as to the reasoning behind Russia's latest ban, another in a long series that has become an issue of hot debate between officials from both countries.

Veggies Have Weaker Bones
Vegetarians have slightly weaker bones than meat-eaters, according to a joint Australian-Vietnamese study published in the July 2 edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The research determined that vegetarians had 5 percent less dense bones than meat-eaters, while vegans — who avoid eating all animal products — had 6 percent weaker bones. Whether the lower bone density can be linked to an increased risk of fracture has yet to be discovered.

Latest Agricultural Outlook
The OECD and FAO have recently published their latest joint ‘Agricultural Outlook’ report covering the period 2009-18. The highlights section of the report can be found by clicking here.

International Prices
For the latest international prices, click here.

Tailpiece - Nobody Does it Better
Using sex to sell their message (again), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals this week in Toledo, Ohio, and Lansing, Mich dispatched minimally clad "PETA beauties" to shower in portable stalls set up at busy intersections to make a point about how much water it takes to raise livestock to produce meat. The message, however, was apparently lost on many who happened by the showering activists. One passerby thought it was a promotion to get people to sign up for new bank accounts!