BREEDING & GENETICS ▶▶▶
GreenFeed growing sustainably in Vietnam
When an integrator calls itself ‘GreenFeed’, surely there must be something sustainable and innovative about its pig production chain. Indeed, this Vietnamese company invests in the future, with sustainable recycling techniques, and a lot of attention paid to attracting and keeping its employees – and an online meat delivery service.
BY STUART LUMB, CORRESPONDENT G
GreenFeed staff doing last checks before insemina- tion of dry sows.
reenFeed is one of Vietnam’s largest integrators in the field of swine production. It started small 15 years ago as a soybean crusher, working with multinational agricultural commodity supplier
Bunge. Subsequently, GreenFeed moved into feed milling. Currently, the company produces more than 1,000,000 tonnes of feed per year and has six mills in Vietnam, one in Cambodia, one in Myanmar plus a mobile mill-and-mix plant in Laos.
Selling feed is a competitive business Selling feed to individual pig farms is a very competitive busi- ness. Having an integrated operation means a guaranteed market for feed at cost plus a saleable product, i.e. slaughter pigs. That is why many feed companies these days establish their own pig units. GreenFeed now owns 20,000 sows, with the aim of hitting 100,000 sows by 2023.
Breeding stock: A PIC dealer Randolph Zoerb is GreenFeed’s deputy general director of farm training. He says, “GreenFeed has had links with PIC for many years and in fact has had the PIC franchise for Vietnam since 2010. We sell PIC stock both to our own farmers and to third-party clients as well.” He continues, “GreenFeed has two artificial insemination studs each of 300 boars. These studs contain both sire and dam lines with some boars being imported from the USA whilst others have been born in Vietnam. The nucleus farms only import boars and some gilts from nucleus herds in the USA and Canada, in order to reduce genetic lag. It’s far cheaper to bring genetics into Vietnam in the form of semen and it’s possible to transport semen from Saskatchewan to Vietnam in 72 hours. “The extenders used give semen a five-day life and so fresh, not frozen, semen can be used. GreenFeed has bred its own F1, the GF24, (derived from the Camborough 24), which is noted for her robustness, feed intake and survivability. We cross these with either the GF 399, 337 or 280 terminal sires.”
Challenges for GreenFeed in Vietnam The challenge is keeping pigs alive, explains Mr Zoerb. He says, “We get 30-40 pigs born alive per litter, but we can only wean 28-30. Interestingly, the local small producers wean around 25 piglets per sow per year.” The ‘back yard guys’, as he calls them, are still between ten and 20 piglets per sow per year. Major issues in Vietnam are feed intake and health, Mr Zoerb explains. He says, “We feed sows twice per day in gestation. Lactating sows get fed at the cooler times of the day to max- imise feed intake. Regarding health, we have Foot-and- Mouth Disease (FMD), Classical Swine Fever (CSF), Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), Porcine Epidemic Diarrhoea (PED) and respiratory diseases. Here it’s hot and humid, ideal conditions for diseases to incubate.” He continues to say, “We are lacking in ‘hands-on’ large animal vets – and if we have a major problem, we have to bring in outside veterinary expertise. Also we have very few diagnostic labs, although these will come in time.” He concludes, “We naturally have access to veterinary prod- ucts: vaccines, antibiotics and etc. and the pharmaceutical companies help us by providing back up veterinary advice and support.”
12 ▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 34, No. 5, 2018
PHOTO: GREENFEED
PHOTO: GREENFEED
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