Introduction

This is the ninth year BPEX has been involved with InterPIG. For 2010, InterPIG has seen Canada and Czech Republic join the group. In addition the Brazilian member has provided a further typical dataset to best represent the differences experienced in Brazil. The two datasets represent pig production in the states of Santa Catarina (SC) and Mato Grosso (MT).

Costs of production

Within the final results available, roughly half of the countries experienced an increase in costs between 2009 and 2010 and half had a decrease in costs. Sweden had the largest increase in costs at 12 per cent due in the main to an 18 per rise in feed costs. Meanwhile the Netherlands returned the biggest decrease at six per cent and had a four per cent lower feed cost. The average change in production costs for the EU countries involved was two per cent higher in 2010 compared with 2009.

Figure 1 Percentage change in feed costs 2010/09

In 2010, most countries in InterPIG had higher feed costs with Canada reporting the greatest change at 20 per cent. However countries such as France, the Netherlands and Ireland experienced lower feed costs.

Compared with 2009 over half of the group reported a reduction in post-weaning mortality with Sweden and Spain both returning a half a percentage point drop in mortality. In contrast Belgium experienced a 0.8 percentage point increase. A similar number also had an increase in daily liveweight gains for the finishing phase of production. In terms of carcase meat produced per sow per year, 11 out of the 14 datasets available (excluding Brazil (MT) produced more meat per sow in 2010 then the previous year.