Pigs

Extract

To produce for market needs, the pig producer requires a clear view of the market. But in the pig industry, sophisticated as it may be, this is not always the case. Producers have often been reluctant to accept the restraints upon production that the meat trade requires if product quality is to be maintained. Conversely, the trade has sometimes been slow to allow producers to profit from the benefits of new techniques and streamlined production practices. These sorts of problems will remain with the industry while it continues to be based upon adversarial trading at each interface of the production chain. The benefits of integration between breeder, producer, feed compounder, slaughterer and meat trader are self-evident and essential to the future of the industry. The producer needs better communication lines with his market. If that communication is to generate information which is useful, both parties, not one party, must benefit. An environment of opportunistic trading between the various parties within the industry, and an adversarial view where each believes it is exploited at the hand of the other, is counter-productive.