PHILIPPINES-PIG INDUSTRY HAS TO BE RE-BUILT.
"Just like in the past when pigs were struck by FMD (food and mouth disease), the hog industry was able to recover," Mr Mendoza told ABS-CBN’s morning show, "Umagang Kay Ganda."
Mr Mendoza on Tuesday said that the already troubled hog industry in the province was aggravated by the Ebola Reston scare, bringing down the sales of pork by 50 a whopping per cent.
"When I went around [public markets] yesterday (Tuesday), vendors told me that pork sales dropped by 50 per cent. Market vendors selling eight pigs a day are now selling only four," the governor said.
Mr Mendoza said hog traders around the province told him that pork sales have been cut to half since the Department of Health (DOH) revealed the Ebola Reston infection in pigs from farm in Pandi town.
The governor, however, said that he is expecting the hog industry in the province to recover as soon as the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) finishes the culling of the Ebola Reston-infected pigs in Pandi town this week.
He said a total of 2,662 pigs have been killed and he expects the BAI to finish the culling of more than 3,000 more infected pigs by Friday.
THAILAND-JOINT VENTURE WITH JAPAN.
Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Ajinomoto Co., Inc has announced that its consolidated subsidiary Ajinomoto Co., (Thailand) Ltd. (Ajinomoto (Thailand)) will establish a joint venture company to be called Itoham Betagro Foods Co. Ltd on 6 March 2009. The joint venture is with three other companies: Itoham Foods Inc. of Japan, Betagro Public Co. Ltd and Hoei Bussan Co. Ltd.
The new joint venture will process and sell ham and sausage. It would be expected to generate sales of approximately 1.7 billion yen (JPY) in three years from exports to Japan and domestic sales in Thailand. In addition, the joint venture plans to import Rockdale Beef, a premium brand of beef from cattle raised by Itoham in Australia, and sell it primarily to the retail and restaurant markets in Thailand.
Ajinomoto and Itoham formed a business alliance in May 2008, and the two companies have since studied ways to expand business by complementing and taking advantage of their mutual business strengths. This joint venture agreement is a part of that effort.
Betagro is a major livestock raising and processing company with swine and poultry farming operations in Thailand, and already conducts a joint venture with the Ajinomoto Group in pork and poultry processing and frozen foods.
Through this joint venture, the Ajinomoto Group expects to enjoy an advantage in procurement of meat and other raw ingredients for its seasonings and processed food business.
NEW ZEALAND-IMPROVEMENT NEED IN PIG FARMING.
The British pig farming standards exceed ours here in New Zealand, with Britain having a 100 per cent ban on the use of sow stalls (or sow crates).
Gregor Fyfe, from Freedom Farms comments, "Jamie reassured viewers that it was okay to buy British pork because pig farmers don’t use sow crates, but unfortunately many New Zealanders appear to have made the incorrect assumption that New Zealand farmed pork is fine as well."
"This is absolutely not the case, and New Zealand consumers need to know that a large number of our pig farmers use sow crates."
There is only one way that consumers can be sure that the bacon and pork they are buying and eating has been reared without the use of sow crates, and that is to only buy products labelled "free farmed".
BRAZIL-MEAT COMPANIES IN DECLINE.
Bloomberg reports that the share price of Perdigão SA – Brazil’s biggest food company – fell to its lowest in a year in São Paulo trading after the country’s poultry exports dropped in February.
Perdigão slid 4.3 per cent to 26.50 real (BRR). Perdigão, which depended on poultry exports for 23 per cent of third-quarter revenue, earlier dropped to as low as BRR 26.23, the lowest intra-day price since 8 October.
Brazilian poultry exports fell 13 per cent from the previous month to $294 million, with volumes dropping 5.3 percent to 231,500 tons, the Foreign Trade Secretariat said on its Web site. Beef export values rose 10 percent, while the value of pork exports jumped 29 percent from the previous month.
Poultry exports "presented the worst performance among the three proteins, with reductions on both exported volumes and prices," Citigroup Inc. analyst, Carlos Albano writes. "It is still too soon to become more optimistic about Brazilian meat exports."
Perdigão rival Sadia SA – Brazil’s second-biggest food company – gained 1.1 per cent to BRR 2.75. Based in Concordia, Sadia is down 72 per cent in the past 12 months after reporting a BRR 544.5 million ($225 million) write-down for the third quarter on bad currency bets. Perdigão has dropped 36 per cent, while the benchmark Bovespa Index is down 43 per cent.
JBS SA, the world’s biggest beef producer, gained 1.1 per cent to BRR 4.55.
ISRAEL-POULTRY DISEASE.
The Israeli veterinary authority sent the Immediate Notification dated 3 March to OIE.
The report describes an outbreak of Newcastle disease in a flock of 100,000 birds at Ramot Hashavim, Petach-Tiqwa in Hamerkaz, near to Tel Aviv. Around two hundred birds were affected and half of them died. Ten thousand birds were destroyed, the report says.
The Notification explained that the flock is divided into two premises of 50,000 table egg layers each. One group is 58 weeks old and the second group is 45 weeks old. The distance between the two premises is approximately five metres. The clinical signs and the post-mortem lesions were detected on one of the two premises – that with the older flock. Destruction of all the birds in the two premises has begun and will be terminated on 6 March 2009.
Newcastle disease last broke out in Israel in June 2008.
