Feeder pig price is also high. When usually March to fall we see price decrees, this year mid-April price came to € 53 /pig (20 kg), Mercolleida, and maintain strong. Last week price was set at € 51/pig (20 kg). This is the reference price, but the actual sale price with premiums has reached € 78/20 kg pig 3 weeks ago, and at this moment around € 73 – very high value, we are in June …

With these Feeder Pig prices, it is not that the demand went down, but there is uncertainty  about the profitability of these pigs.

In the first quarter of the year there were 1,269,595 slaughtered pigs – 14,208,389 tonnes, compared to 1,227,053 – 13,650,271 tonnes in first quarter of 2018. A 3.47% increase for number of pigs and 4.09% for weight.

The tendency for average slaughter weight is  to increase year by year. In 2018 was 111.7 kg compared to 107.6 kg in 2015.

However, the situation this year is breaking with all the schemes, so far this year we have an average weight of 112.4 kg compared to 113.8 kg a year ago. Piglets are more expensive than ever at this time of year and the new Pini Group Packing Plant begins to do their tests. With these data, it will be “fun” to see what is going to happen in the second semester of this year in Spain,  if in addition we place this in the context of the Porcine Sector worldwide with  ASF, considering China’s situation more specifically.

ASF and Spain

This is a pathology of which, here in the Iberian Peninsula, we have great experience. In the 60s an aircraft from Angola landed in Portugal and left food waste with pork. We started to know it in Spain in the 70s and it took more than 40 years to eradicate it.

This gave us the opportunity to learn to live with it, to create control systems, to detect a possible infection and delimit its dissemination, as well as to investigate the search for a vaccine.

And that is why the news came out at the end of May, that the European Commission grants funding for the VACDIVA project “A safe DIVA vaccine for the control and eradication of African swine fever”, coordinated by José Manuel Sánchez-Vizcaíno, with 10 million euros.

This project has the participation and experience of two global reference laboratories for  African Swine Fever (ASF) such as those of the OIE and FAO, the EU reference laboratory (EURL), six national reference laboratories of the EU (of the 10 countries currently affected by ASF), four prestigious ASF research centers, two leading global companies in vaccine  production and ASF diagnostic kits.

It will also have the participation of Russian, Chinese and African laboratories giving a very useful support to the project. There will also be active participation of swine producers, agricultural associations, hunting associations and international agencies. All these will broaden the impact of the communication, dissemination and training activities of the project.