Page 878 of articles about news

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has today announced the five successful projects to receive government grants to create energy from organic waste, such as food. Anaerobic digestion breaks down organic matter, such as animal manure and food waste to produce biogas, a renewable energy source for heat, power and transport and keeps organic waste out of landfill, which cuts greenhouse gas emissions.

During the last two years, 38 swine herds on the island of Bornholm have disappeared which leaves a total of only 94 herds. The number of animals has decreased by 3,000 head.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) has been awarded $20 million from the National Institutes of Health to create a Genomic Sequencing Center for Infectious Diseases.

There was a rapid increase in farms using vaccine in the BPEX-funded PCV2 vaccination project in spring of last year with the percentage of farms vaccinating later levelling off at close to 70 percent. But figures from NADIS do not show a significant decrease in PMWS. The reason is that, as expected, vaccination, at least in the early stages, does not lead to a complete disappearance of disease from farms, explains NADIS.

According to figures from the Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs, the consumption of meat and meat products increased by 0.6% in the first three months of 2009 compared to the same period of 2008, arriving at a total of 603,030 tonnes. The consumption of fresh meat decreased but the demand for transformed meat products rose by 8.7% reaching 138,026 tonnes, which is 23% of the total sold. (Original in Spanish. Read Google translation here).

American swine producers have introduced a new program designed to allow an equitable exit by sow owners from the farrowing business. Producer Retirement Plan Chairman Chuck Wirtz describes the initiative as an early retirement program to allow producers who exit the industry to re-capture the unused genetic productive value of their sow herds.

The floods of 2008 are fresh in Iowa pork producers' memories less than a year after rising waters from the Mississippi and its tributaries flooded thousands of acres of crops and dozens of pig barns following heavy spring rains. Helping pork producers prepare for this and many other types of emergencies is the goal of the Pork Checkoff's new emergency action plan tool.

Paraguay meat exports totaled 245 million US dollars in the first five months of the year, which represents a 25% decline compared to the same period a year ago (328 million US dollars), according to the latest official reports.

A contentious proposal to compel US food manufacturers to contribute towards safety inspection costs took a step forward yesterday after the Food and Drug Administration signalled its backing for the idea.

Import of live pigs, pork and its non-heat treated products (temperature of treatment shall be at least 800C, time of treatment shall be at least 30 minutes) from the Province of Quebec is banned until further notice because the situation on H1N1 influenza has been complicated. At the same time, earlier imposed restrictions on import of live pigs, pork and its non-heat-treated products from Alberta and British Columbia shall be lifted because the situation there stabilized.

With the second-highest recorded cereals crop expected this year and stocks replenished, the world food supply looks less vulnerable to shocks than it was during last year’s food crisis, FAO said in its Food Outlook report published today.

Chinese scientists have given cells from adult pigs the ability to turn into any tissue in the body, just like embryonic stem cells. They hope the breakthrough could aid research into human disease, and the breeding of animals for organ transplants for humans. It may also enable the development of pigs that are resistant to diseases such as swine flu.

The Rosselkhoznadzor considers it possible to lift restrictions earlier imposed on import of live pigs, pork and its non-heat-treated products from the whole territory of Spain to the Russian Federation because the epidemic situation on H1N1 influenza in Spain stabilized.