A privately-owned 650-sow Georgian farm, established with genetics from Britain in 2012, is on target to produce over 30 pigs per sow a year, around 20 per cent above budget.
The unit, established about 50 km south of the country’s capital Tbilisi, includes its own slaughter facilities and the owners, Kalanda Ltd, recently held an open day designed to attract meat buyers. Georgia is seriously short of home-produced meat but the new herd is on its way to help address this — producing 380 pigs per week rather than the 320 originally budgeted for.
“This is the most modern farm in Georgia. Due to the health status of the pigs and the very high standard of management, they have been weaning an average of 12.5 pigs per litter from gilts,” commented Matthew Curtis, ACMC’s managing director, who made a presentation at the event.
His company is supplying great-grandparent stock and boars to enable the unit to be its own multiplier, produce its own replacements and expand production. Kalanda is being provided with technical back-up from ACMC’s headquarters in Beeford, Yorkshire, which includes PigCom management system that, says Matthew, is highly valued.
Gilts started farrowing in July and the farm will be producing finished pigs by December 2014
The farm, which cost over six million Euros to establish, has 10 per cent of the country’s pig population. The long-term plan is to expand to 1,300 sows.
Since independence from the Soviet Union, Georgia has suffered an economic down-turn and wants to become more self-sufficient in pork production. Currently the population of around 4.3 million people consumes just 6kg of pigmeat per head per year – way below the European average.
