Metritis is a problem in many dairy herds all over the world and this inflammation of the uterus is mainly, but not only, caused by the classic »difficult calving«

A long-term study in Scotland over fifteen years and covering 2,914 calvings
pinpointed metritis (up to 21 days after calving) or endometrium inflammation (more than 21 days after calving) cropping up after calving problems with heifers or with cows in poor body condition, after multiple births, premature calvings or difficult presentations – especially when any of these require human intervention.
Other factors often noted before metritis include afterbirth retention.  

Following the disease, timely insemination is often difficult with resultant longer dry periods or culling.
Even where the animals are safely back in calf the research indicates that dry matter intake during the first 100 days postpartum is often depressed and milking performance suffers too. – kl –

First sightings are claimed in Denmark of a wheat yellow rust (Puccinia striformis) strain that has already caused losses of up to 10 million tonnes per year in the USA.
Dr Mogens Hovmoller, Aarhus University plant pathologist says the spores have a completely different DNA profile than current European yellow rusts although so far the new rust strains screened out in Denmark seem to be ineffective against most common European wheats.
But Dr Hovmoller warns that varietal resistance is not a long-term guarantee and that only a few mutations would be needed to allow the new strain to overcome present resistance in European varieties.
Making the new yellow rust strain potentially more dangerous is its proven ability
to multiply under conditions of higher temperatures (30 ° C and above) compared with current strains. Tests in the USA have also shown that it can produce three to four times as many spores than older strains, growing much faster on susceptible wheats.

Danske Slagterier, the national organisation for pig production in Denmark, expects more inter-EU trade of pigmeat in 2008. In 2007 some 90 % (1.5 m t) of processed Danish pigmeat was exported with 600,000 more pigs slaughtered compared with the previous year. On top of this 4.9 m animals were exported live.
Among a row of factors helping Danish farmers is the high feed conversion efficiency of the Danish hybrid lines. The Danish Meat Association (DMA) presented the results of an international comparison that puts the Dutch and the Danes level at the top of this league with 2.68 and 2.69 kg feed for 1 kg liveweight gain. German pig producers managed a conversion of 2.83 : 1 while the taillights here were the USA (2.93 : 1) and Canada with 2.95 : 1.

Despite this production efficiency the Danes are struggling with low producer prices from the main slaughter cooperatives Danish Crown and TiCan. Just as with the main Danish milk processor Arla Foods, there is a danger of farmers redirecting deliveries over the German border to realise better prices. Last year 700,000 slaughter pigs (plus 150,000 cull sows) took this route for processing in Germany. Some sources say that this total could top 2 m this year.

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Higher returns are expected for starch potatoes following the opening this year of a new factory in the Netherlands to extract high value proteins from the starch. In the first year of operation the operator, Avebe daughter Solanic, expects to produce around 1 000 tonnes of food proteins with potential output increasing to around 30,000 t within five years.

Contracts have already been signed for potato protein uptake in bakeries, meat processors and the wellness drinks industry. The proteins will be made available to the pharmaceutical sector at a later date. These food ingredients are seen as viable alternatives for livestock-based proteins and, according to Solanic, offer substantial added value to starch potato processing. Among the first uses for the plant protein is replacement of egg in meringue baking and it is also being applied as a high value amino acid source in sports drinks, as replacement for milk protein in ice cream and as a hunger-suppressor in some dietary foods and drinks.

Global warming is already bringing more volatile weather patterns – even to temperate European zones. The French ARVALIS crop research institute warns that this makes accurate weather forecasting even more important for farmers and has reacted by researching a new system which uses trends over the last 30 years to predict the most likely temperatures and rainfall up to six months ahead.
The technique is called seasonal forecasting and is based on the »most likely« weather expressed as above, close to or below the average for any given period. To simplify calculation, forecasts are for much larger areas than present day weather predictions in France (200 x 200 km grids instead of 20 km squares).
Such long-term forecasts are helped by studying the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) that is based on the pressure difference between the Azores high-pressure area and Icelandic low-pressure areas. This helps predict whether northern European weather will be wetter and cooler than normal or warmer and drier. For instance predictions based on the system for December 2006 – February 2007 in parts of France were correct in forecasting temperatures above the seasonal average and the winter turned out to be the warmest for 50 years with temperatures 2.1° C above long term average.
Sea temperatures are also an important factor in seasonal forecasting. As seasonal forecasting is much more complicated for northern Europe compared with, for example, the tropics or the South Seas, specialised computation tools have to be developed first for more accuracy. – nd –

The worldwide production of poultry meat grows continuously. US estimates reckon that in 2008 this will reach 70 m t, up 2 m t on the year and 3.5 m t greater than in 2006. Largest production by far is of broiler meat with turkey only playing a role in the EU and USA.  
Producing the most poultry meat is the USA with 16.5 m t. With a domestic consumption of 14 m t (46 kg/head) this country joins Brazil in servicing almost the complete export market.
Second in total production is China with an annual 11.4 m t. With Chinese consumption expected to reach 11.6 m t poultry meat in this year (not least through the swine fever related high price of pigmeat and the coming Olympic Games) China will achieve a net import of 170,000 t poultry meat.
While Brazil is only the third largest producer with 10.5 m t, its domestic consumption of 7.5 m t means it is the largest exporter. EU-production this year is expected to be a good 8 m t with a net export of 150,000 t.

New Zealand dairy Fonterra announces that details of carbon emissions produced in dairy production  – from farm cows right through to transport around the globe and retail distribution – will be published on its product labels. Such »CO2 labelling« is also being urged by the New Zealand government to help consumers compare the emissions related to each brand.
Helping Fonterra in calculating the carbon costs is the Australian University of New South Wales and New Zealand Research Institutes »Scion« and »AgResearch«. The size of the agricultural sector in New Zealand means its share of greenhouse gas emissions is relatively high and will, according to government, be brought into international emissions trading from 2013. By that time agriculture will have to have reduced its emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 10 % compared with the 2005 figure.
Minister of Agriculture Jim Anderton says he wants to »Work closely with the (milk processing) branch to develop a practical and effective system for rewarding good environmental protection performance.«

Manitoba farmer Darrel Carlisle claims over 80  % savings in nitrogen fertiliser for his spring wheat – simply by channelling CO2, NOX and C from the exhaust of his 450 HP tractor through the pneumatic drill and into the soil along with his seed. Although he admits that in each case foliar fertiliser is later sprayed, this farmer says he used to apply the equivalent of 112 kg N/ha when drilling. Since he’s been ploughing-in all the gas from his exhaust while drilling he adds only 8 kg
N/ha at drilling and is getting the same yield as before for his hard red: an average
2.7 t/ha.
Carlisle, who with his brother and father farms 2,000 ha of cereals and oilseeds, is one of 45 large farms in Canada, the USA and Australia claiming to make substantial savings through diverting exhaust gases into the soil. They work together with a company called N/C Quest with claimed backing of scientific trials by independent laboratories.
A complex cooling system takes the gases from an initial 500 ° C at the mouth of the exhaust down to around 65 ° C before they can be safely piped into the drill tubing. Carlisle reckons he also helps keep down his carbon emissions during sowing by pumping an estimated 8 kg CO2/ha into the ground in this way.

The system is not without considerable controversy. While some experts agree that CO2, C, etc., could have some fertilising effect when pumped into the seed horizon through stimulating bacteria activity, it is pointed out that nitrogen fixing enzymes, for example, do not need extra CO2. Neither, say specialists, is the NOX from exhaust fumes readily available to growing plants. While resulting carbonic acid might release otherwise locked phosphates in the soil, these minerals still need to be
replenished by the crop
grower.
Meanwhile, farmers such as Carlisle get ready for another season of fertilising with tractor exhaust gas. »We have seen that adding carbon to the soil in this way enhances plant growth«, he concludes. – nd –

There’s probably not a country in the world that studies so hard the best ways of fostering young piglets than Denmark. This is because Danish sows farrow from 12 – 13 liveborn piglets per litter and this performance is increasing steadily by 0.3 piglets every year.

»High sow output means redistributing litters is becoming even more common«, says Dr Flemming Thorup of Danish Pig Production, the country’s support organisation for this sector. »Most at risk in big litters are the very smallest members and we find best overall performance comes from taking them away after they’ve had some colostrum at 6 to 8 hours. A collection of these young piglets is then fostered onto a newly farrowed sow.«

The aim is to keep litter numbers to between 11 and 13 piglets so where there are still surplus piglets these are removed at almost the same time and fostered onto a first or second litter sow that has a 2 – 5 day old litter. Her piglets in turn are passed on to a sow that has just weaned her litter at 21 days old.

For best results in this fostering routine the first foster sow should always be first or second litter, according to Dr Thorup. »They accept the new litter much better than older sows. Also, we’ve found that a sow at 21 days does not accept very young piglets so well but is more successful with 2 – 5 day old ones. That’s why we have introduced the two-step system.«

He points out that mortality does increase with larger litters so the extra work in two-step fostering is repaid with more live pigs weaned. Average number of pigs produced per sow per year in Danish herds is now 25 with the top 25% herds producing 27.3.

One headache for farmers adopting two-step nursing is finding room for the second foster mother – the sow that has just been weaned and been given a new batch of piglets. On most farms there’s the choice of moving the foster piglets into the pen where the sow has reared her previous litter and thus risking piglet cross infection problems – or of causing the sow stress by moving her out of her pen and into a new one.

Comparative trials by Dr Thorup and his team indicated that saving the sow stress was probably the most important route to take. Where the piglets were moved to the sow in her familiar surroundings nursing the newcomers seemed to get off to a much better start. By weaning, the foster piglets were on average 400 g heavier than piglets in the trial that had been fostered to sows moved to a new pen. – nd –

In the Netherlands so-called »agricentres« are being planned for large-scale vegetable and meat production under the same roof. In China the concept is even further advanced where a Dutch consortium is designing a single complex for synergetic growing of vegetables and rearing and slaughter of cattle, pigs and fish.
But, given planning permission, the Netherlands won’t be too far behind with the planning company Innovatienetwerk discussing a series of such agricentres. A typical development – on industrial harbour land at the Port of Amsterdam – features stylish glass pyramids for 14,000 sows and spaces for 100,000 feeding pigs. Under the same roof: poultry production, aquaculture and glasshouse vegetable crops. Feed will be delivered by ship for pelleting on-site and there’s an integrated slaughterhouse with processing of slaughter waste and manure into biogas on the spot. The biogas is then used to heat the building in winter and also the basement fish farming tanks. Feeding pigs and broilers are reared on floors between the basement and top floor glasshouses. The company gives main advantages of the agricentre approach as:

• l Low capital investment per unit;
• Synergetic gains through biogas production and use in the various enterprises. Residues used for fertilising vegetable crops;
• Tighter control of water and air emissions compared with individual farms;
• Better health and disease control through enclosed birth-to-slaughter system and on-the-spot slaughter and also ship transport of feed.    – nd –

Only 2,016 of around 545,000 farms in France are certified under the rules required for »Agriculture raisonnée« or »good farming practice«. This is far fewer than had been aimed for when the scheme was introduced five years ago.
Then, the government targeted 30% of farms to be registered. Now, the Ministry of Agriculture has pared down its expectations to »five percent of farms by 2008« as part of the programme towards sustainable production.

To help the general public become more acquainted with the principle and advantages of good farming practice the ministry’s communication strategy is being reappraised. Among other actions an improvement in the labelling of the appropriate products coming from certificated farms is suggested.    – sri –

What’s the relationship between trace element deficiency and various diseases in dairy cows? This question was addressed recently in France by a working group studying more than 10,000 dairy and suckler cows from 2,080 herds. Acting as control were 177 herds without health problems. Trace element presence was assessed by blood samples. Supply status was ranked as sufficient (A), barely sufficient (B), borderline (C) and insufficient (D).

Among the findings was that insufficient copper supply was not associated with increased disease susceptibility or fertility problems in adult animals. But with younger ones deficiency reduced growth rate and led to increased diarrhoea outbreaks and higher mortality. Herds with status B zinc deficiency showed an increased risk of mastitis, reduced milk production, placenta retention and leg and joint problems.
Zinc deficiency with calves led to diarrhoea and growth rate reduction. Where zinc concentration was under 12 mmol/l with a third of animals in the herd this indicated a herd deficiency. Herds with status D selenium deficiency ran the risk of abortions and placenta retention among other health problems.         – kl –

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Increasing effort is going into documentation of grain production in the USA and this demands ever more time and money for growers. So all the more welcome is a new crop management programme developed by the US Agricultural Research Service (ARS) promising faster input and reading of information on fields, crops and their treatments.
»iFarm Record Keeper« is the system and it can process farm management information in different formats without the farmer having to feed-in the information more than once which leads to more efficiency and less error possibilities.

The iFarm Record Keeper, developed by ARS scientist Gale Dunn and technician Daniel B. Palic in cooperation with grower group Colorado Wheat Farmers, also features an extension for rapid on-screen creation of farmland rental contracts. – nd –

Pigmeat prices in 2007 were down on the year in the six largest EU-27 production countries to which belong Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Poland and Spain. Major factors, according to the ISN Pig Producers’ Society in Germany, were expansion of pig production in most countries, levelling off of demand, the strong Euro and growing competition on the world market. Largest drop in price was in Germany with minus 15 c/kg slaughterweight (sw) while farmers in Spain faced a drop of 14 c/kg sw even although they still had the best prices in the EU. But worst prices overall were in Denmark with an average of just 1.225 €/kg sw. There, prices for contracted producers were dictated as before by Danish Crown that has nearly 90% of the country’s slaughter capacity. The ISN expects a markedly higher pig price level throughout Europe in 2008.  – st –

During the milk production year 2006/2007 1.9 million tonnes EU milk quota remained unused and in the first four months of the present production year milk deliveries are even 0.7% lower than the same period of the previous year. Should this trend continue unused quota could reach almost 3 m t by the end of the 2007/2008 period. Reasons, feel the EU Commission, include the continuing difficulty of quota transfer as well as rigid guaranteed amounts for individual countries that in some are even set fast for every region or indeed dairy. Additionally, the unused quotas are increasingly rarely taken-up by other producers with farmers taking advantage of diversification opportunities. With over 28 m t Germany has the largest quota followed by France with 24.6 m t and Britain with 14.8 m t. Since 2003 the overall quota has been topped-up by a total of 24.5 m t, mainly because of EU expansion to 27 member countries. Interesting will be the effect of a further topping-up on future milk production. – st –

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Spain’s two-year-old milk quota bank founded for efficient transfer of quotas with a fixed price to avoid speculation by dealers has completed another successful year. The national bank controls the quota price sales.  Spain’s minister of agriculture Elena Espinos reports that over 240,000 t of quota has passed into the bank from dairy farmers going out of business with 152,000 t sold on to 4,850 dairy farms at 27 cents/kg and a further 86,500 t awarded free to some 2,000 young farmers and other preferred businesses.

Scottish grain growers were the first in Europe to create an assured quality production system for grain (SQC) in 1994. Now they have also pioneered the next step in control with a national HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) system for cereal production. This covers points from harvesting through to delivery to the mill or distillery. The HACCP system is already widely used in the food sectors and in Denmark some pig producers apply the system controlling quality from breeding farm to meat processing plant.
Being introduced this year, the HACCP procedure will dovetail with HACCP schemes of major customers of Scottish growers such as millers, maltsters and distillers. Paperwork is greatly reduced in the grain growers’ programme through the creation of a generic HACCP system covering all farms instead of each grower having to create an individual system. Production is monitored with frequent on-farm tests for all procedures concerning the grain. Approved crops get an official »passport« which must accompany all grain leaving the farm.     – nd –

European farmers are much more confident about the
future. Results from the Trendmonitor 2007 conducted by the DLG and Europe’s leading agricultural market research institute Kleffmann asked respondants how sure they were that the current economic situation would have a positive effect on their businesses in the next 12 months. The percentage results are shown in the graph with average reaction (where very good is 1 and very bad 5) Hungary 3.0, UK 2.9, France and Czech Rep. 2.8, Poland 2.6 and Germany 2.5.

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Increasing light intensity in pig housing from 12 to 40 Lux does not increase the sight and orientation capacity of pigs, according to researchers at Wageningen University’s Animal Science Group. EU regulations stipulate that pigs must be kept in a minimum 40 Lux environment for eight hours daily. An increase from 12 Lux intensity to 40 costs an annual 0.40 € per place and year, estimate the researchers. They looked at the situation with 20 gilts in a pen with two automatic feeders. One feeder, marked C, was kept full while the other, O, was continually empty. The pigs very quickly recognised the situation and went only to feeder C.
The scientists then varied the lighting intensity and the size of the identifying letters and discovered that letter size was very important for the pigs’ orienteering. On the other hand the light intensity had no effect and the pigs only began making mistakes between O and C when the lighting sank below 1 Lux.

Does tackling intestinal worms in cattle have a measurable effect on milk output? To find the answer and to check if the efficancy of a treatment could be judged from recording antibodies in the milk of treated cows, Belgian veterinarians ran trials with 110 dairy herds ranging in size from 16 to 87 milkers.
On half the farms all cows received antiparasitic treatment with the other herds serving as control. Treatments were carried out in October and from August of that year until four months after the de-worming monthly samples were taken from the respective bulk tanks and analysed.

In all herds that were treated the associated antibody level in milk was lower in every sample while the amount of milk produced by the de-wormed cows was an average 1.2 kg per cow and day higher than that from the untreated herds. In the herds with the highest antibody level before treatment daily milking performance increased most significantly  by 4 kg per cow. No effects on milk composition were noted.     – kl –

With ethanol from maize booming in the United States, the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR) has set 100 scientists to the task of finding new uses for the by-products of the process. This is critical because in 2006 some 10 million tonnes of dried grains from ethanol production were produced in the US Midwest alone, selling for cattle feed currently at between 85 and 110 US $/t. But ethanol production is increasing rapidly and oversupply of the dried grains is foreseen very soon.
One of the results from laboratory, greenhouse and field trials with the post-fermentation material is that it has proved very efficient at weed suppression when applied as mulch - stopping germination of, for example, chickweed seeds.
NCAUR researcher Mark A. Berhow tried the mulch on plots with young tomato plants and noted that the plants themselves were not harmed while any seeds in the soil failed to germinate. The mulch, applied as pellets, also appears to have a fertiliser effect. In one trial, tomato yield was increased by 51% compared with a plot with no mulch.    – nd –

The US-based Smithfield Foods heads the current world list of biggest pig slaughter and processing concerns. Together with its European daughter companies Smithfield has an annual throughput of 30 million pigs – more than are produced in any single year in the whole of France.  Positions two and three are filled by European concerns Danish Crown and the Dutch/German Vion conglomerate which between them process 41 m pigs a year thus almost equalling total Spanish output.
Under the global top ten (all of which slaughter over 6 m pigs/year) there are only three European concerns to be found (including the German Tönnies concern) despite Europe being the second largest producer of pig meat after China and placed a long way ahead of the US. The seven other companies all have their headquarters in North America, indicating how concentrated this sector has become there.

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