Pig short course highlights issues facing the global pork industry

The American Meat Science Association is partnering with the National Pork Board and the U.S. Meat Export Federation to offer PORK 505, a short course focusing on quality standards, culinary techniques, international marketing and other issues facing the global pork industry.
The day-and-a-half program will take place ahead of the World Pork Expo on June 6 and 7 at the University of Nebraska.
Key PORK 505 topics include:

• Hands-on international carcass fabrication methods
• Pork palatability and quality standards
• Hands-on culinary demonstration and preparation of international recipes using fabricated cuts
• Niche/specialty products that appeal to the worldwide marketplace
• Currently exported offal products and their importance in the worldwide marketplace
• Hot topics in the international pork industry

AMSA is offering discounted registration fees to companies or organizations sending more than one person to any AMSA short course. After the first person pays the full registration fee, the second person receives a 10% discount. All additional registrants will receive a 25% discount. Attendees must attend the class at the same location to qualify for the discount. For a complete course outline and to register, visit: http://www.meatscience.org/Page.aspx?ID=7321.

New editors for Egg Industry, Feed Management and Pig International

Roger Abbott has been named editor of Pig International.

WATT has announced editorial staffing changes for three of its agribusiness titles. These changes are part of a company-wide effort to strengthen our content in agribusiness and pet food markets.
Terrence O’Keefe has been named the editor of Egg Industry magazine. He brings over 20 years of experience in the poultry and publishing industries with him to his new assignment. Previously, O'Keefe served as editor of WATT PoultryUSA and Poultry Digest and has contributed articles to other WATT publications.
Before joining WATT as an editor, O’Keefe worked in the poultry industry in a wide range of jobs, everything from field service person to production scheduler to processing plant manager. He has worked for turkey and broiler companies in live production and processing, and worked with egg layers in graduate school. O'Keefe has master’s degrees in poultry science and business administration.
O’Keefe is headquartered out of his Concord, N.C., office and can be reached at tokeefe@wattnet.net.
Roger Abbott has been named editor of Pig International. Abbott is an experienced journalist who has been reporting on the agricultural industry, particularly pigs, the environment and politics, for newspapers and magazines in southern Africa and Europe for the past 20 years.
While living in South Africa and Zimbabwe, Abbott worked for several national newspapers and the Durban-based Farmers Weekly. He moved to England as a foreign correspondent, specializing in agriculture and politics, for the Argus SA group of newspapers in 1980.

Terrence O’Keefe (left) has been named the editor of Egg Industry magazine. Ken Jennison (right) has been named editor of Feed Management.

Since then he has held senior editorial positions on several publications, including editor of Pig Farming for five years. He was news editor on its sister magazine, Farming News, for three years and also worked for the National Farmers Union in London, where he edited its monthly British Farmer magazine.
Abbott now lives in Suffolk and has been working as a freelance journalist since 2000. He can be reached at rabbott@wattnet.net.
Ken Jennison has been named editor of Feed Management. Jennison is an experienced journalist who joined WATT in 2005 and has served as managing content editor for WATT since 2008. In that role, he has worked on all of WATT’s agribusiness titles, having been involved in the magazines, websites, video editing and other reporting for Feed Management and other WATT titles.
Prior to coming to WATT, Jennison held various editing and communications positions in the manufacturing and technology industries and served as the assistant for special programs for the chancellor of Oklahoma. Jennison received his B.A. from New York University in Business Press Publishing and completed post-graduate work in writing at Columbia University.
Jennison is based in the WATT corporate office in Rockford, Ill. He can be reached at kjennison@wattnet.net.

Transparency in the pig industry

More than 20 years ago pigs were out in the open but after some harsh winters and storms experts came up with the idea to put a roof over them. Once a roof was built, they decided walls would be a good idea and pigs became hidden from the public. While the intentions were pure, hiding the pigs from the public became a negative for the industry.
“People need to see that the pigs are well taken care of,” says Malcom S. De Kryger, vice president of Belstra Milling Co. at a World Pork Expo press conference.
Various animal rights groups have posted grainy videos of rough treatment to outright abuse of animals on YouTube. A few months ago, a video from Countryside made the rounds on several national news outlets giving the industry a collective black eye.
“We wanted to show that we’re not beating our animals – that’s repulsive to us,” says De Kryger.
To document to the public what really happens in a farrowing house and breeding barn in stalls, the company launched www.realpigfarm.com, a live video stream that films 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Four foot-by-four foot windows were installed in several buildings so people can look in and see the pigs.
“We don’t take biosecurity lightly, but if people want to see what we do then we’re happy to show them,” he says. Belestra also offers tours and has about 200 visitors per year.

Guangzhou to close live pig wholesale markets

Southeastern China’s Guangzhou city will shut down live pig wholesale markets in 2010, in order to improve quality control on hog production, slaughtering and sales, according to a report from Southern Countryside Paper.
Under the new policy, live pigs will be transported from hog farms directly to large-scale slaughterhouses, skipping hog wholesale trade markets that cause difficulties in product traceability, the report said.

British examine pig industry's footprint

The environmental impact and carbon footprint of English pig production are interwoven, and the industry in England is seeking to begin to tackle both at the same time, says a bulletin from the British Pig Executive (BPEX). It has launched two reports looking at the carbon footprint of pig production together with the sustainability of the industry.
The first report is called Scoping Life Cycle Assessment of Pork Production. It contains estimates of the environmental impact of pork production and identifies opportunities for improvement.
The second is Pigs and the Environment, which looks at how BPEX can work to enhance the environmental sustainability of pork production.
Like all economic activity, pork production causes environmental impacts; primarily climate change, air pollution, water pollution and loss of biodiversity. These impacts tend to be lower for pork products than for beef and lamb, but higher than for poultry.
Chris Lamb, BPEX head of marketing, said, "The English pig industry has already taken major steps to improve efficiency and, as a consequence, cut CO2 and other environmental impacts.
"As the industry has a comparatively small number of producers, positive changes are relatively easier to introduce and this has been part of the reason for the excellent response.
"The pig industry is determined to participate fully in the environmental debate and play its part in reducing GHG emissions."