Poor week for pig prices

By James Brady

14 January 2006 : This week's EU prices have all dropped to varying degrees with the price range now narrowed with the Spanish leading the field with a price of €1.47, which is unchanged from early December, while Denmark, Belgium and Holland are the lowest priced at €1.25 on average this week.

At home most Irish prices have dropped this week, which leaves Dawn's price ranging from €1.31 to €1.34, with Glanbia's price from €1.26 to €1.29 with 6c/kg more available for welfare pigs.

Many pork plants are paying from €1.32 to €1.36 while the Northern prices are less clear but dissatisfaction is increasing with the price differential now less than before and the regulation regarding the trade in pigs still excessive.

The sow price range was unchanged early this week and was from €27 (€0.93) to a top of €32 (€0.91), with reports of very low volumes traded over the past fortnight but with competition stepping up early in 2006.

In the UK - The annual cost of production report, just published by the British Pig Executive (BPEX) is mixed for UK producers. On the plus side, the report, which looks at 2004, showed pre-weaning mortality had improved as had carcase meat production per sow and daily liveweight gain of rearers was excellent. But British pig producers continued to show comparatively poor performance in a number of key areas - though some of these were starting to show an improvement in the last half of 2004 and early 2005.

The key points in the report, which compares the relative competitiveness of British pig production with other EU countries, are: Britain had the highest average cost of pig production, excluding Italian Parma ham production, at €1.43 per kg.

Great Britain continued to have poor physical performance results in a number of key areas: litters per sow per year, mortality and daily liveweight gain of finishers. There was little annual improvement indicated by the 2004 results and performance was significantly poorer than in 2000, due largely to PMWS.