British pig genetics win awards in Spain
For the third time herds using ACMC stock have received major awards at Porc D’or (‘Golden pig’ awards) at a Spanish pig industry ceremony attended by over 600 people in Madrid.
Alfredo Galindo who runs a 700-sow commercial herd in Castro de Fuentidueña, in the province of Segovia, gained first place and a gold award for achieving a farrowing rate of 92 per cent , while a nucleus farm, Josvi, with 500 GP and GGP sows gained a third prize with a farrowing rate of 91.28. Both are part of Sat 322, a large-scale 10,000-sow integrated company that produces all its own feed and has a slaughter facility for 40 per cent of its production — about 80,000 animals.
The farms involved house their sows in groups having already complied with the EU regulations regarding the partial ban on sow stalls.
“This is further hard evidence that producers converting to 2013-compatible systems will not experience a drop in production when using AC1 breeding females,” commented Matthew Curtis, ACMC’s managing director.
The awards are sponsored by BD Pork an independent organisation which runs a special reference database for the Spanish pig industry under the auspices of IRTA (Institut de Recerca i Tecnología Agroalimentàries) — the Institute for Investigation and Agri-food Techologies. Over 800 farms and 600,000 sows are monitored in this data-base.
