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Article archive

“The International Meat Secretariat (IMS) congress held in Cape Town in September 2008 was a highlight.

“A significant addition to the congress was that PPP held an informal meeting with producer representatives from eight pork-producing countries.

“They were the United Kingdom, the United State of America, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia. I am of the opinion that these ties with other countries are of the utmost importance to our small industry,” Jenkinson said.

“Our bio-gas project was another highlight. The steering committee on bio-gas did a lot of work,” he said. PPP was also able to assist producers to significantly reduce fines allocated in the Gauteng region. It is still only the Limpopo region that has not taken any decisions but the office is still working on it.

It has come to the attention of the PPP office that new legislation requires all pig producers to register for waste water before the end of August 2009. 

A decision was taken that producers need to independently make contact with the Department of Water Affairs.  A PPP website has been developed and launched and all members are urged to register and make it work.  PPP held a very big promotional campaign, Porkalicious, that was ran with 40 different butcheries. There were various printed campaigns in the media targeting newspapers and magazines.The PPP office arranged a function for members of the media as well as representatives of the trade.  The information on the PPP’s promotional activities was presented to them at the function. PPP participated at the Good Food and Wine show, as well as Aardklop in Potchefstroom and Inniebos in Nelspruit.

The PPP office acted as skills development facilitator for a number of farms.

It also presented skills development programs on fire fighting, first aid, HIV awareness and occupational health and safety.PPP acted as a consultant to SAPPO with regard to imports.

These included harbor inspections and the office is currently busy with a pre-feasibility study on anti-dumping to see what could be done about the recent imports.

Alliances key to stay in business

“Alliances are of extreme importance to pork producers and these alliances must be utilised to stay in the forefront of business,” said Gerard Braak jr, national chairman of SAPPO at the meeting.

“I do not think we have had great success as far as the demand side of our product is concerned. We cannot base promotions on low prices. We must determine where the problem lies. Is the problem perhaps that we do not have enough pork products in butcheries? The value-added products’ market is small and stagnant. The fact that ribs are currently selling at very high prices proves that consumers are willing to pay for a product they really want,” Braak said.

Braak said that the awareness of pork in butcheries is too low. “This leads to the question whether the industry are benchmarking against the correct products,” he said.

Proposed minimum standards for farms

“The proposed minimum standards for pig farms are based on the requirements of the Department of Agriculture’s Veterinary Services and it will ensure that producers have done everything in their power to protect their herds against diseases,” said Dr Peter Evans, SAPPO’s health officer at the meeting.

“All efforts have been made to make it comfortable for everybody to adhere to. The aim is to have all producers adopt these minimum standards, including emerging farmers. In essence, the protocol is about risk management. Risk sources include pigs, people, vectors like flies and rodents and transport,” he said.

Report on health matters 

“No new exotic diseases have been reported the past year and PRRS and Classical Swine Fever are under control. Hopefully South Africa will soon be declared free of these diseases,” said Johan van der Walt, chairman of SAPPO’s Health Monitoring Committee at the meeting.

He said an Animal Health Forum was convened in an effort to act in a pro-active way. All role players in the red meat industry are represented on the forum and it has shown some success for the first time this year. Minimum biosecurity measures were formulated to keep diseases out of the country.

“SAPPO also has a compartementalisation system to prevent diseases. It represents the minimum security entry level needed to set up a piggery and has a very high standard of biosecurity measures,” Van der Walt said.

Export committee will liaise with all role players

John Wright, chairman of the PPP’s export committee, which will investigate export opportunities for South African producers, said that to have any success with the initiative, liaison and alliances with other role players are of the utmost importance, as is the need to be transparent. It is also necessary to determine what business should run it; contracts; producer involvement and export compartments.

“Exporting pork is not a short term marketing ploy. When investigating the possibilities, it is also necessary to take a look at the bad scenario’s, and not only the good ones. Some of the aspects of the investigation are beyond the capacity of the committee and a professional investigation may have to be done in the future,” he said.

Progress with QA scheme

A total of 17 farms, representing 26 375 sows, are now part of the PPP’s quality assurance scheme, said Jacobus Hoffman, manager of the PPP at the meeting. 

“In terms of the On-Farm-QAT, applications for four farms are pending. The PPP formed a committee to act as guardian of the scheme. The committee consists of John Wright, Dr Peter Evans, Wantie Burger and myself.

 “The abattoir revision has been done and all abattoirs have been informed of changes. The registration of the Quality Mark is in process via the firm, Adams & Adams. Registration of the scheme has also been submitted to SAATCA (Southern African Auditor and Training Certification Association),” Hoffman said. He also highlighted the following:

Information

As far as member statistics are concerned, PPP now bills for 45 745 sows. This represents 70% membership in the area.The new forms for collection of data has been distributed and the results will form part of SAPPO’s data base.

PPP’s website was launched and five registrations have been received.          

Training

PPP is the skills development facilitator and in this capacity, producers received R361 975 in 2008. New reports for all forms have been submitted before 30 June 2009. This includes the Annual Training Report (ATR) and the Work Place Skills Plan (WSP).

As far as skills training is concerned, one training sessions was been presented on occupational health and safety, three on first aid, one on basic fire fighting and two on HIV awareness.

PPP were able to secure an additional R100 000 for this year.  Producers must contact Guzette at the PPP office for any training needs.

Promotions

The retail promotion campaign was conducted with Spar in May 2009 and Shoprite in July 2009.  The new Porkalicious Campaign was launched with a new partner, Deli Spices.

Imports

A total of 14 889 ton pork has been imported up until the end of June. Most imports have been from Canada (47%). Ribs used to constitute more than 70% of imports, but now only 50%.

Batch farrowing has many advantages

Dr John Carr, an international pig consultant was the guest speaker at the annual general meeting. He discussed batch farrowing and said that batch production leads to improved hygiene and increased control with all-in/all-out systems.

“When planning an all-in/all-out system, it is important to plan the flow of pigs. Pigs are not machines and cannot follow rules. There are also seasonal issues to consider, as well as people issues and disease issues. In the end, every producer wants to produce full value pork and it is possible to plan in advance for all of these,” he said.

He said a health team needs to review the whole farm to allow them to implement a proper all-in/all-out system.

When the producer wants to adopt a normal batching model, there are three obvious places to start calculations; the finishing pens, the nursery and the farrowing place. The more moves, the more different rooms and the more cleaning, the less growth will be achieved.