The 2019 Teagasc National Pig Conference is taking place at the Hotel Kilmore, Cavan, tomorrow, Wednesday, October 23.
The conference also took place at the Horse and Jockey Hotel, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, today, Tuesday.
The theme of the 2019 Teagasc National Pig Conference is ‘Focusing on the Future’, with all presentations incorporating this theme.
According to a statement from Teagasc, margins in the pig sector in Ireland “took a significant turn for the better early this year”.
This was as a result of the disease-related difficulties in Chinese pig production.
The topics for this year’s conference cover a range of subjects including the future implications of the current Chinese situation, feed costs and merchant credit, weaning management and on-farm reinvestment.
The guest speaker this year is Professor John Mabry from Iowa State University.
Professor Mabry is looking at the economic impact of genetic progress on fitness traits.
Production
The number of pigs produced/sow/year and the growth performance on Irish pig farms has “improved significantly” over the last number of years.
According to Teagasc, in 2012, the output was 24.5 pigs produced/sow/year, with an average liveweight at sale of 104.5kg. In 2018, this increased to 26.9 pigs produced/sow with an average liveweight at sale of 112.6kg.
As a consequence of the increased sale weight, and the number of pigs produced/sow/year, this has resulted in a 15% increase in the amount of pigmeat produced/sow in the last six years.
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