Cover Story: Genetiporc gears up its Humane Pork program for the European market
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Though the premium for Humane Pork has narrowed, and the company has a challenge in developing markets for processed products, hams, bacon and sausage, it predicts a bright future for this niche market and already has 160 Ontario producers signed up
by DON STONEMAN
Genetics provider Genetiporc and sister company Les Viandes duBreton Inc., headquartered in St-Bernard, Que., are poised for a foray into European Union markets and want to bring Ontario producers along.
Genetiporc president Christian Breton says the duBreton plant in Rivière-du-Loup, near the New Brunswick border, is poised to sell pork into the European Union (EU) and he is impatiently waiting for an audit of its systems by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in August.
After a fire in 2002, the duBreton plant was rebuilt with exports to Europe in mind. Those ambitious plans came to a halt after Canada approved the feed additive and growth re-partitioning agent, Paylean, in 2005. Its use is forbidden in Europe, and not one Paylean-fed pig can be allowed to taint a shipment.
In addition, duBreton sees a big demand in Europe for meat from pigs raised on its Humane Pork program. The basic tenets are that they should be raised on straw, with no antibiotics, and that there be loose housing for gestating sows and third party verification.
DuBreton has some standing orders from the United Kingdom and there is a huge demand from Germany as well, says Germaine Camiré, director of pork procurement. Soon EU animal welfare standards will call for loose housing only for sows. With a supply of pork raised under the Humane Pork program standards, "we will be ready for that," he says.
(Another Canadian company has already breached the European trade wall. See story page 15)
DuBreton claims that 160 producers in Ontario raise pigs for its Humane Pork program. Jones Feed Mills Ltd., based in Linwood, owns the sows and contracts them out to growers. Genetiporc has formed an alliance with Jones Feeds, which will be selling Genetiporc gilts to producers in Ontario. The gilts will be raised according to Humane Pork standards in new barns in the Dundalk area, far away from the mainstream of pork production in Ontario, for biosecurity reasons. Linwood veterinarian Marty Misener will supervise health at the barns.
In the meantime, Genetiporc is gearing up by moving its boar stud from Manitoba to Ontario, says Genetiporc's sales representative Jerry Koert. C&M Genetics, based out of Lucan, will run the stud and boars will be housed in the barn that formerly held defunct production giant Premium Pork's stud.
Humane Pork producers must use Genetiporc genetics. However, they will not be required to buy feed from Jones, Christian Breton told producers and suppliers in Stratford in June.
Ontario is a key source of hogs for the Humane Pork program. While Genetiporc is converting some of its own conventional barns to Humane Pork standards, humane pork production largely doesn't work in Quebec because the density of production makes disease prevention difficult, Breton says.
Reduced premium
Enthusiasm for the Humane Pork program may be muted somewhat with premiums over Ontario Ministry of Agriculture's cost of production figures not being as lucrative as they were three years or even one year ago.
Breton says contracts were originally based on $18 over the Ontario agriculture ministry's cost of production figures. Now the contracts being signed are for $12 over Ontario ministry figures. Breton says the challenges of the marketplace made the cut necessary. When the gap is so big between conventional pork and the humane pork, retailers are reluctant to stock their coolers with the higher-priced humane pork.
It also comes back to the ability of duBreton to market the whole carcass. While consumers are willing to pay a premium for fresh products, such as loins and ribs, processed bacon hams and sausages bring only the standard price.
Koert points out that the H1N1 scare has forced duBreton to kill Ontario hogs only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This is necessary to maintain markets in Russia, which does not accept Ontario pork in the aftermath of the H1N1 scare. "Why? We don't know," Koert says.
The Genetiporc plant is fully capable of differentiating Humane pigs from the regular hog stream because slaughter hooks are equipped with electronic tracking. That's why identification tattoos are so critical, Koert says.
European Union approval also has to do with the layout of the plant. There must be a separate packaging room, there must be no wooden pallets used, and workers must wear specific equipment. Most important, pigs must not be fed Paylean.
Lambton County producers Toni and Rita Felder are on their fourth year on a program called Humane 35 and ship finished hogs to duBreton.
At Field Farms, there are three employees plus Felder, and part-timers at planting and harvest. Felder says his original employees quit after a year of doing the extra labour involved.
The Felders started farming with 200 sows farrow-to-finish and 200 acres. They expanded to 600 sows, wean 22 pigs per sow annually and send 19 pigs per sow to market. With the expansion, they had Europe's loose housing requirements in mind.
Conception rate is 85 per cent compared to 90 per cent for good producers using stalls.
Toni Felder says that they have weeks when they wean 27 pigs per sow, but sows birth in eight foot long turnaround crates and occasionally a sow has 12 babies and "lies on eight of them. That lowers the average."
Felder can't use antibiotics but he deworms and vaccinates for circovirus and mycoplasma. He estimates that there are $45 in extra costs associated with each hog marketed, compared to conventional pork. Each sow needs twice as much room as in a conventional stall barn, plus more labour and bedding.
In mid-June, Felder was getting $60-$70 per pig over conventional pork. But he doesn't see this system as a way to go for small operators who are already over their heads in debt.
"I don't want to raise false hopes" for farmers looking for a way out of their current financial travails, Felder says. "You have to be really careful with building costs."
He figures that "we need two years with $200 pigs" to get out of the hole that low prices have dug for producers. And he thinks that 25 per cent of the province's producers with 100 acres and 250 sows are in deep trouble, while another 25 per cent "are close."
Feed conversion takes a beating when pigs get scours and aren't treated with antibiotics and it takes an extra 30 kilograms of feed to get a hog to market. With lower feed conversion, there are more days to market and, because humane pigs grow more slowly, they need even more barn space. As a result, 3,000 hogs require the space normally provided for 4,000-5,000 head.
Still, selling to duBreton may be the only program that even approaches profitability in the Ontario pork industry today.
Chose loose housing
In the course of a decade, Felder has tripled his sow numbers by converting his former farrow-to-finish operation on the home farm to all sows in larger quarters so that he can manage dry sows in a group setting and farrow sows in turnaround stalls. Pigs are in a nursery and in finishing barns in other locations, some owned and some leased. In addition, he now works 900 acres of cropland.
When he was expanding, he chose loose housing for sows. There are no dry sow stalls allowed in Europe, he notes, pointing to Smithfield Foods' commitment in the United States to get rid of dry sow stalls.
He still breeds sows in crates, but groups them right away, while they are still in heat.
His sow barn has 30-40 single-sow pens to house females that "are beaten up in a group."
There are three aspects to the certified humane program, Felder says: straw and peat bedding, no antibiotics, and third party verification.
He keeps pigs in the nursery until they reach 80-90 pounds. This results in a more robust pig going to the finishing barn and a lower mortality rate there. Smaller pigs stay in the nursery another week. When pigs get scours, the pH in drinking water is lowered until the scours dry up. Homeopathic remedies are added to the water as well.
Pigs are vaccinated for lepto and parvovirus as well as circovirus. Sows are dewormed regularly and get a circovirus shot at weaning. Pigs that don't do well "go to the barbecue market," Felder says.
One drawback, he notes, is that "there is only one packer" buying pigs from this program and, at the same time as premiums are going down, costs are rising. For example, circovirus vaccine is going up 10 cents a dose, he says. With high wheat prices on the Prairies, Ontario should be the cheapest place to raise pigs in Canada now, he says, and even here, costs are driving pork producers out of business.
Paisley producer Lloyd Holbrook is more optimistic. He has 50 sows and marketed 20 pigs per sow year last year under the Humane Pork program. He was weaning 24-25 per sow previously, but weaning fell last year due to an undiagnosed disease issue that remains unresolved. He farrows half of his sows in turnaround crates and half in box stalls, but found that the box stalls were "way better." Pigs are cleaner and there are fewer scours in the baby pigs.
"Drying powders are a big part of this program," Holbrook says. He uses them to dry the floor under the sows and also on the navels of newborn piglets.
Hensall Co-op makes Holbrook's custom ration and he thinks that its higher fibre content helps. Alfalfa is also part of the ration and meets some protein needs more cheaply than soybean meal.
"All the way through, there is considerable extra cost, but they are paying me," he says. He finds that 50 sows is as much work as he can manage himself with straw bedding, and with his son helping sometimes. "It's not for everyone," he says.
Suits the family farm
Veterinarian Marty Misener says that Humane Pork is a "shining example" of how a niche market can work. A strong focus on health is necessary to get the pigs to market. Niche markets need that kind of structure, he says, and this one will be perfect for the small family farm, "especially if we end up with direct marketing."
Christian Breton says it will take a long time, perhaps as long as 10 years, before the Humane Pork program becomes large scale. At present it is overshadowed by mainstream pork production, he told a group of producers in Stratford in June.
There are too many diseases and pressures on biosecurity for humane pork production to become widespread. He says that "many big systems try to be antibiotic-free" but send as little as 10-15 per cent of their output to the packing plant without antibiotic treatments.
A big challenge for duBreton remains in developing markets for processed products, hams, bacon and sausage from humane pork. If you can get premium prices at retail for this part of the carcass, it makes a big difference to the price the packer can pay the producer.
Breton says that his plant, with a capacity of 23,000 hogs a week, supplies American packer giant Hormel Food's antibiotic-free pork program.
The customer at the store wants consistency, Breton says. And that is a problem with some programs.
Germaine Camiré admits that correct feeding is essential for Genetiporc pigs. "You need to put some gas in the tank or they will slow down" in growth, he says. "We are working with a very lean platform."
Misener says lots of his clients use Genetiporc genetics. Body condition before farrowing is critical. "These girls are not happy if they come into the crate too fat or too skinny."
But he also believes that the Humane program will not suit a lot of pig farmers. It will not generate sufficient cash flow in 2,500-sow barns. PRRS is still the biggest challenge facing producers and Misener believes that small is beautiful when it comes to reducing disease pressures. Thus, a prime goal is to keep operations small. The Humane Pork barns have done well in Wellesley township, even though there are a lot of pigs in herds with differing health levels.
"Big pig barns pull in a huge amount of air and expel it," he says, and there is the potential to infect nearby barns. That's not an issue with smaller barns, he says.