Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Breeding a better pig in a changing global market

Dr Jan ten Napel

18th March, 2015

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Introduction

Commercial pig production is changing worldwide

A genetic programme is a design tool to change characteristics in a population

Objective

●Overview of what is currently being done to breed pigs that are suitable for the production systems and conditions of future generations

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Global developments in pig production

Economy

●Scale enlargement

●Rapid expansion in Russia, China and Brazil

●Country-specific in EU, but decreasing

●Concentration (BE, DE, FR, NL, PT, ...)

●Abandonment (DK, ES, IT, UK, ...)

●Re-structuring (CR,PL)

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Global developments in pig production

Markets

●Increase in niche markets

●Organic production

●Local produce

●Low-cost production of commodity

Society

●Concerns about public health: use of antibiotics

●Concerns about animal welfare: tail docking, castration

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Global developments in pig production

Pig breeding and genetics

●Consolidation through mergers and take-overs

●Increasing scale of business

●Globally operating

●Introduction of expensive techniques, such as large-scale genotyping of the whole genome

●So fewer and larger breeding organisations serve a wider range of markets worldwide

●Trade will be increasingly with grandparent stock

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Breeding for the future

Five generations of pigs is seven years in practice

What should be changed through genetic selection?

●Better health of pigs

●Better resource efficiency

●Maintain a reasonable profitability

●More acceptable to society and consumers

●All of this in a wider range of production systems and markets in the world

Focus of current research

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Breeding for better health

A healthy pig

●Does not get clinical symptoms for pathogens that are common in the herd

●Deals with an infection with minimal loss of production

Breeding for healthy pigs

●Creates a good starting position

●Needs the right management to become effective

●Difficult in practice, but not impossible

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Study of Herreiro et al. 2014 on litter size

There is genetic variation in ability to maintain productivity in harsh environments

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Breeding for better resource efficiency

Minimal wastage (loss of animals, loss of production)

●Viability of pigs

●Mothering ability

●Predictability of production

●Positive social interactions

Ability to utilise locally available feed stuff

●Availability of high quality protein (or lack of it)

Increased productivity

●Improved efficiency per kg product

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Genetic correlations between growth rate in different group sizes in the same pen

Growth rate with competition (groups of 16) and without competition (groups of 13) are different traits

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Breeding for acceptable pork production

No need to castrate – breeding for a low boar taint

●Boar taint is caused by skatole and androstenone

●Some boars have a reduced clearance of skatole if androstenone in the liver increases

●Strongly heritable

●Requires a different way to select against boar taint than often suggested

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Crossbred progeny of high and low boar-taint sires

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Breeding for a reasonable profitability

Anticipate on changing consumer preferences

●Maximise carcass revenue

Minimise cost of production

●Reduce the need for individual management of sows through breeding

●Predictability models

●Improve productivity in diverse and dynamic conditions

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Improving productivity

It is a pattern, not an incident: +0.2 pigs born per litter in the Netherlands

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

New tools for genetic improvement

Genomic selection changes the common practice in animal breeding

●Utilising detailed DNA information to estimate genetic merit

●It means reliable breeding values already at birth

●Helpful for traits expressed in one sex or late in life

●Application across breeds and crosses

●Research: new knowledge, new tools

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Breed4Food

Public-private partnership

●Four Dutch-based animal breeding companies

●Wageningen UR

Three major research areas

●Exploiting DNA information

●Enabling new breeding goal traits

●Adding value to the chain

Aim: enhance genetic improvement for a sustainable and profitable livestock sector, meeting societal challenges

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Conclusions

Dutch pig breeding companies focus on breeding pigs that are able to produce in a wide range of climates and production conditions

Pigs from such a genetic programme should adapt without problems and be productive in Spanish conditions

Current research focuses on all main aspects of sustainability and acceptability to society and consumers

Animal Breeding & Genomics Centre

Dutch genetics

Breeding for sustainable pig production – now and in the future