PHOTO: KOOS GROENEWOLD
PHOTO: VINCENT TER BEEK
PHOTO: KOOS GROENEWOLD
FARM VISIT ▶▶▶
The journey to make money from pig welfare
It’s an often-heard objection: Better welfare comes at the expense of profitability, and consumers will always choose the cheap pork over the premium pork. Annechien ten Have-Mellema, from the Netherlands, did not want to sit and wait. She has been embarking on a journey to prove them wrong.
BY VINCENT TER BEEK, EDITOR PIG PROGRESS B Profile
Name: Annechien ten Have-Mellema Function: Owner of Ten Have farm, together with husband Menno, and son Detmer and daughter Lizeth. Description: Ten Have farm is a 600-sow farrow-to-finish facility near Beerta, in the north of the Netherlands. The farm has a capacity for about 5,000 wean-to-finisher pigs, which are mostly sold under an own brand and qualify for two stars in the national welfare label Beter Leven (see box). The farm has four pig houses, two large biogas tanks and two stor- age silos. A training and welcome room is provided, offering great views over part of the finishing pig house. The farm has a total area of 250ha, about 10ha of which are used to grow lupins for own use. The farm also grows winter wheat, lu- cerne, sugar beets and corn. The farm employs six other people apart from the family members.
ANG – it’s an unusual sound to hear while admiring finisher pigs. It is as if someone is slamming a door. BANG – there it goes again, this time from a differ- ent direction. And indeed, door slamming it is, but
it’s not because someone is angry. At the Ten Have farm,
owned by Annechien ten Have-Mellema in Beerta, the Neth- erlands, the finishers can choose whether they would like to be in or out. The door in every pen falls closed once an animal has crossed the threshold, and that explains the noise. The two large finishing houses are brand new and started be- ing used in 2018. Finisher pigs on the farm have plenty of space – 1.1m2
per animal indoors and 0.7–0.8m2 per animal outdoors.
It is just one of the many examples of how the farm is going all the way to provide attention to both animal welfare and envi- ronmental issues – far beyond what is legally required.
Producing pork with two stars Ten Have farm produces pork that can be sold with two stars in the Dutch animal welfare label scheme Beter Leven (see box). Essentially, Ten Have-Mellema aims to do things differ- ently, with attention for welfare, environment and flavour – and to demonstrate that this can be marketed too. She says, “I wanted to show that better animal welfare can be done within regular pig farming. Soon I realised that I would need a special brand to market our pork – so the next ques- tion was what would be good components for this brand? I needed to know what consumers want. So I started a search for a tastier meat.” For her pioneering attitude she was elect- ed to be Dutch Agricultural Entrepreneur of the Year 2019. Over the years buildings and elements of the farm have been renovated, rebuilt and updated. This ongoing process of im- proving and doing better simply never stops – at the time of the visit the group housing area for gestating sows was re- ceiving a new roof, so this summer the sows have been enjoy- ing a good deal of sunshine, a breeze and – it’s the Nether- lands – the odd shower.
Outdoor area for finisher pigs What jumps out immediately at the farm is the space for fin- isher pigs. Each of the 84 outdoor finisher areas is large and mostly covered with a roof. One part is not covered – so when it rains the floor there can get a bit slippery. Indoors the bed- ding is furnished with straw for the pigs’ comfort. All pens have distraction materials such as a ball, rope or other type of toy. The animals – non-taildocked and not castrated – do en- joy playing with them, Ten Have-Mellema says.
Automatic straw dispenser Straw is dispensed to all pens using the StrohMatic, a system
18 ▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 6, 2020
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
