Save the pigs
Provided by New Zealand Lifestyle Block, incorporating Growing Today, magazine.
Purebred pig breeds have been in danger of dying out in New Zealand for a long time while the so-called white pigs enjoyed commercial success, but now the traditional white breeds are also in danger of disappearing forever.
Go to any commercial pig farm in New Zealand and you'll see plenty of white-coloured pigs. Buy any New Zealand-born-and-bred pork or bacon from your supermarket and it will come from a white-coloured pig that produces the pale flesh that consumers like to eat.
Those white pigs are crosses of high- performing Landrace and Large White pigs, bred together to create a commercial hybrid that grows the most meat and the least fat in the shortest time, for the least amount of feed possible.
Purebred Landrace and Large White pigs have tens of thousands of mixed breed relatives in New Zealand, but the pure bloodlines that created those hybrids have gone from relatively high numbers 5-10 years ago, to the lowest of all registered pig breeds today.
Surprisingly, according to the Rare Breeds Conservation Society, their numbers are now even lower than some of the heritage breeds that are popular with lifestyle block owners such as the Large Black, the Kunekune and the Wessex Saddleback.
Worse, we won't have them for much longer if new breeders can't be encouraged to take them on says NZ Rare Breeds Conservation Society President and pig breeder John Earney.
"Incredible as it may sound, the Large White and Landrace pigs are now some of our rarest domestic pigs. If you look at history, the same thing has happened in the poultry industry with the White Leghorn and Indian Game being some of our rarest breeds, replaced by hybrid layers and hybrid meat birds.
"There were small breeders that reared pedigree pigs and the ones they didn't keep for breeding, they sold for meat and that was their income. Then the bigger piggeries started up with commercial factory farming-type pigs that grow really, really fast.
"Now that crates will be phased out (by 2015), the very pig breeds we're going to need in future will be rare and priced out of the market (because there will be so few)… which means more pork will be imported from overseas which is counter-productive."
While commercial farmers are battling to remain profitable, hobby pig breeders have shown increasing interest in heritage breeds such as the Large Black, something the Rare Breeds Conservation Society NZ (RBSCNZ) can take a lot of credit for. In the 1980s, the very last Large Black sow in the country was destined for the works when Canterbury farmer and Rare Breeds champion Michael Willis heard about her. That sow and her daughter then waited years for paperwork to clear so a purebred Large Black boar could be imported from Australia, and they (and a couple of sows imported at the same time) were the very small beginning of the resurgence of interest in the Large Black. Today, they are one of the most popular of the heritage pig breeds, renowned for their hardiness in free-range conditions and great meat production.
"The coloured pigs, like the Large Black, are really strong now," says John Earney. "They're ideally suited to the small farmer who wants some home-grown pork running around outside. Really, the Large Whites and the Landrace need to be housed - not in crates - but under cover because of the risk of sunburn.
"But who do we market those pigs to? Small-time pig breeders have got the coloured breeds, big commercial breeders have got the fast-growing brainless crosses, and that leaves white pigs in the middle. Who breeds them?"
Joh Fohn is the herd registrar for the NZ Pig Breeders Association, and he remembers when he started out in the breeding business in the 1960s there were thousands of purebred pigs being registered every year.
"But these days a lot of people can't be bothered with showing or don't have time to breedthem or to show. I can remember shows where we had hundreds of pigs, now some shows don't have any pigs at all, it's a bit of a struggle."
Joh's figures do show some interesting upward trends that he feels positive about.
"We've got a lot more Large Blacks than we did just a few years ago, and a lot more lifestyle block people involved, and a lot more female members than we used to.
"A lot are small-time and don't do a lot of registration, but I think it doesn't matter how many pigs you have, so long as you like the animal."
Registering a particular breed of pig is very simple, and it's very precious information at a time when numbers of all the traditional pig breeds are so low. It costs as little as $55 a year to be a member of the NZ Pig Breeders Association, and just $7 to register a pig.
While still the registrar, Joh retired from keeping pigs a few years ago, handing over his herd to long-time friend and Stratford-based pig breeder John Fredrickson.
"John does the hard work now and I do the paperwork!"
Age is another problem creeping up on the pig breeders of New Zealand. Many of the older generation of pig breeders are retiring, and John Earney says part of the answer to saving pig breeds is encouraging new people to try them.
"If you look at the gains we've made over the last five years with the popularity of rare breed poultry, and people digging in their gardens and planting veges, and making their own jam, and farmers' markets - all those little things are important to our future, and so is this. If the countries where we import our meat from suddenly get a disease like Foot and Mouth, and we can't import any more meat, these pigs might be all we'll have left."ucer in the Manawatu and a director of NZ Pork, the pork industry board. "It's pretty horrific, it's financially touch and go for pork producers.
Why even commercial pigs are in danger
Almost 45% of pork and bacon products sold in New Zealand are manufactured from meat imported from Canada, the USA, parts of Europe and elsewhere, but it comes at a huge cost to New Zealand's pig breeders, and to the country's commercial pork producers who by comparison work to some of the highest health and welfare standards in the world.
"That's 700,000kg a week," says Steve Kidby, a commercial pork producer in the Manawatu and a director of NZ Pork, the pork industry board. "It's pretty horrific, it's financially touch and go for pork producers.
"When the Minister of Agriculture made the statement about (phasing out) sow stalls, the whole of the pig industry breathed a sigh of relief - we're all prepared to move forward because we realise that is what consumers are asking for.
"But what we've got is a battle with imported pig meat: chicken, beef and lamb is not imported, only pork. This places the NZ pork producer at a disadvantage, so we'll see the big farmers get bigger, and the smaller ones will drop away.
"Unless it has a blue label that says it's 100% New Zealand pork, bacon or ham, it's coming from countries like Canada and the USA and places in Scandinavia. The USA and Canada don't have to meet the same standards of animal welfare as the NZ pork industry works to.
"You can pick up a pack of bacon and see a label saying "manufactured in New Zealand" but if it hasn't got the 100% NZ bacon or ham label, it's not New Zealand born, bred and raised pork.
"We (the NZ pork industry) are backing the call by Green MP Sue Kedgley for country of origin labelling so consumers can have confidence that when they buy pork, it's 100% New Zealand pork."
Not knowing the provenance of pork imported into New Zealand is of huge concern, but worse for this country's dwindling numbers of pig farmers is that every time large amounts of pork come into the country, it means another financial blow because the price they get for their meat drops.
"It's a huge concern forusas an industry," says Steve Kidby. "It won't just be breeders of rare pigs that will die out, it will affect us commercial guys too.
"Take this last year: grain prices have gone up so much it's costing me another $81,000 a year to feed my herd, and at the same time pork prices have dropped due to imports. For every drop of 10c per kilogram for my 250 sow unit, that's the equivalent of $37,000-$40,000 that gets wiped off my bottom line as a pork producer, and you don't see any of us driving around in fancy cars."
The problems with imported pork
The stories below are just from one week in January, 2011, and are just a couple of examples used by John Earney to show how little New Zealanders know about the conditions of pig farms around the world. Imported pork comes from countries which don't have to meet the same standard of health or welfare as New Zealand pig farmers; the USA and Canada has virtually no health or welfare standards for pigs at all.
China battles pork meat laced with a poisonous drug
Pork believed to be laced with Clenbuterol (a drug for treating asthma that also keeps meat lean) is reported to have put consumers in China in hospital with stomach pains and heart palpitations. The use of Clenbuterol is banned, but a Radobank expert is quoted as saying its use is believed to be widespread in China.
www.allaboutfeed.com [external site].
Russia bans German pork and poultry
German pork, live pigs, and poultry have been temporarily banned from being imported into Russia after animal feed in Germany was found to be contaminated with high levels of dioxins.
www.allaboutfeed.com [external site].
More cases of Foot & Mouth in South Korea
An outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in South Korea that began in November 2010 has now seen the slaughter of 2.3 million livestock, including pigs and cattle. It's estimated to have cost Korea more than $2.2 billion, and new cases were still being found at the time we went to print.
www.pigprogress.net [external site].
