Boars heading for 2018
Fattening boars leads to better yields for pig farmers. The other side of the coin is that boars’ more active behaviour can create challenges. Researcher Carola van der Peet-Schwering of Wageningen University and Research Centre has been studying boar behaviour for a number of years now. She examines influencing factors [...]
Various European Union countries are discussing stopping the castration of pigs. European researchers are exchanging information. In the Netherlands, Wageningen University and Research Centre has been studying this issue for five years now. According to Dr Gé Backus, the research’s project leader, possible side-effects are known as are their solutions. [...]
In the Netherlands, researchers from Wageningen University and Research Centre are cataloguing the chromosomes related to the development of boar taint. The underlying idea is that targeted breeding can, over time, reduce the incidence of boar taint. The researchers think an up to 65% reduction is possible. A lot is already known [...]
Supermarkets in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sell meat from uncastrated pigs (boars). In other European countries, supermarkets and meat processing companies are still reticent about purchasing this meat. Not everyone is convinced that the risk of boar taint can be managed using good quality control. However, a preventative [...]
In 2010, representatives of European farmers, the meat industry, scientists, vets and NGOs signed the Brussels Declaration occasioned by increasing attention for animal welfare and the pork sector and meat industry’s desire to produce in a socially responsible, sustainable manner. The signatories expressed their ambition to stop castrating pigs in the [...]
“Stopping castration in the European Union will only succeed if everyone inside and outside the production chain cooperates on market acceptance and knowledge, and exchanges experiences and information.” According to Annechien ten Have, Chairman of the Dutch Stuurgroep Stoppen Met Castreren [Stopping Castration Work Group] there are two crucial success [...]
On 17 and 18 April 2013, Italian, French and German journalists, alongside their Dutch colleagues, took an informative programme on the European state of affairs with regard to stopping castration. The programme’s objective was to inform them about the most recent European and Dutch research results from Wageningen University and [...]