November, 2000 . Volume 23, Number 10 
NCSU Extension Swine Husbandry
November, 2000 . Volume 23, Number 10
Intensive swine production in recent years has brought criticism of most swine-manure practices and alternatives to the lagoon and spray field systems commonly used in North Carolina are keenly sought today.
The key to a successful swine waste-management system is to produce less waste and/or produce some valuable item from it. One system that combines these two objectives is the installation of manure collection belts underneath the flooring. This system has been successfully used by the poultry industry for many years, and research in The Netherlands and North Carolina has demonstrated that this system could be used with pigs as well. A belt upon which the fresh manure drops is placed several inches below the pen's defecation area. By slanting the belt, either using a concave belt or a tilted design (Figure 1), urine drains off while feces stay behind. The urine collects in a pipe along the edge of the belt where it is transported to one end of the building. Air can be drawn over the belt to enhance the drying process of the feces. In pilot-scale setups at North Carolina State University, 50 to 70 percent dry matter contents of this fecal material were obtained.
The belt system has several advantages :
1. Reduced ammonia and odor emissions. The separation of the waste streams (urinary and fecal) reduces odor and ammonia emissions in the barn (reductions in ammonia emissions of more than 80 percent have been reported). This creates a healthier environment for both the animals and the employees and keeps ammonia levels low.
2. Manure transport. The manure collected from the belt is 50 to 80 percent dry material, which makes it easier and cheaper to transport from the farm.
3. Low maintenance. The durability of the belt has been examined in systems in The Netherlands, and tests have shown the life of the belt to ranges from 5 to 10 years.
4. Greater flexibility. Dry manure can be used as fertilizer; as soil amendments such as compost, which can be applied farther from the production site because of reduced transportation costs; or as fuel to be burned for energy production.
The key question for any new technology is whether it will work both practically and economically on a farm. The poultry industry has used this type of waste-management technology successfully for many years.
The economic feasibility of this system for swine is still unknown since all of the puzzle pieces have not been put together. Estimates suggest the belt will increase the cost of the barn to $5 per pig place, but this cost should be offset by the savings in no longer needing a large lagoon or spray fields.
Brett Kaspers, Jeanne Koger, and Theo van Kempen
The U.S. swine industry continues to be in the midst of major structural, financial, and philosophical changes. Some of the key elements of these changes include the continued trend to larger and fewer pork operations and shifts in their geographic location. Globalization of the industry has increased the impact of worldwide production, consumption, and economics on the U.S. pork market. Greater environmental scrutiny of agriculture continues with the evolution of environmental regulations for hog farms.
Producers also continue to evolve, changing from producers of hogs to producers of pork to producers of protein with a focus on pork quality and food safety. Increased emphasis on pork quality has resulted in major changes and improvements in swine genetics for both lean content and muscle quality. This genetic improvement has allowed the U.S. pork producer to meet the more sophisticated consumer preferences for taste, convenience, and nutritional value. Combined, these changes are resulting in efficiency-driven management, genetic improvement toward specific protein products, and, ultimately, the formation of linkages up and down the pork chain.
A comparison of past and present gives clear evidence of the greatest changesin the U.S. industry: increased producer concentration and consolidation, shifts in regional production to non-traditional areas, significant shifts toward contract production, and shifts in slaughter and processing.
While increased regulation, access to markets, and declining hog prices have forced many small producers out of business, other have expanded their production to reduce unit costs. Consequently, the number of hog farms has continued to decline while the average size has increased. The percentage of hogs raised on operations with inventories greater than 1,000 head grew from 37 percent of the U.S. swine population in 1987 to 47 percent in 1992 and 71 percent in 1997. In North Carolina, the second-leading hog production state, nearly 98 percent of hogs resided on large farms in 1997, compared to 63 percent in Iowa (the leading hog state).
Integration has arrived and appears to be accelerating. The largest U.S. pork producer (Smithfield Foods Inc.) controls about 12 percent of the swine breeding-herd, and the seven largest firms account for more than 25 percent of all sows. The consolidation of decision points in pork production has been even more dramatic than these numbers would indicate due to increases at every size level in contract production and cooperative sow enterprises.
The Midwest has long been the dominant region of production, and that continues to be the case. However, the Midwest has declined recently in relative share of hog production while the Southeast, Southwest, and West are growing dramatically. This growth has been dominated by the Southeast, where national market share has grown from 13 percent in 1985 to 23 percent estimated for 1997. The growth in the Southeast is all due to expansion in North Carolina, since other Southeast states have actually experienced declines in production. The secondary regions of rapid growth have been in the Southwest, where growth has increased from 1.5 percent in 1985 to near 2.5 percent for 1997, and in the West, where the growth rate has increased from 1.5 percent to 5 percent over the same period. Combining the growth in the Southeast, Southwest, and West shows their share of national marketing has increased from 16 percent in 1985 to 31 percent estimated for 1997, offsetting the declining relative share in the Midwest.
Consolidation also has marked the packing sector of the chain. In 1999, 72 percent of U.S. hog-slaughter capacity was centralized in 21 packing plants with more than 2 million head per year capacity, compared to 59 percent in 1982. Many packers also have increased the degree of further processing of pork in their operations recently either by buying processing companies or by adding facilities and operations.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that the total number of hogs under contract, owned by operations with more than 5,000 head, but raised by contractees, accounts for 31 percent of the total U.S. hog inventory, up from 30 percent last year. This is, in fact, an underestimate of total contract production as it considers only operations with more than 5,000 head. The 1998 Pork Industry Structure Study considering all sizes of operations reported that 17 percent of all U.S. market hogs were born on contract sow farms and 30 percent were raised in contract finishing.
Contracts also are becoming common for marketing. Non-spot market purchases in January 2000 accounted for 74.3 percent of packer purchases, compared to 64.2 percent in 1999 and 57 percent in 1997. Only 25.4 percent of the hogs are purchased under some system that supposedly reduces price risk to producers. This is because many of the marketing contracts are formulas based initially on the spot market.
U.S. producers are becoming more consumer oriented and less producers of pigs or pork. Quality characteristics are important to Japan, the leading importer of U.S. pork and to the domestic market in chain restaurants and grocery store outlets. Focus on quality provides opportunities to cater to changing consumer preferences.
Satisfying the needs of large chain restaurants requires large, uniform pork supplies. Introduction of bacon-topped sandwiches by hamburger chains, for example, created a new outlet for millions of pounds of bacon.
Quality is consumer defined and consumer driven. This has led to a whole new way of thinking about pork production. What bundle of quality attributes can be supplied to a given consumer? The focus is generally placed upon color, intramuscular fat, tenderness, pH, and water holding capacity.
Consumers also are interested in nutrition, food safety, animal welfare, and environmental issues. Their demands ultimately are leading to the development of integrated and coordinated pork production systems that can produce branded products with a specific set of marketable attributes.
Todd See
| Breeder | Address | Breeds |
| Bob Ivey* | 314 N.C. 111 S, Goldsboro 27530 | L, D, H, Y, CW, X |
| Wesley Looper* | 4695 Petra Mill Rd., Granite Falls 28630 | L, D, H, Y, X |
| Thad Sharp, Jr., & Sons | 5171 N.C. 581 Hwy., Sims 2788030 | D, Y, X |
| Tommy Spruill | Rt. 1, Box 149, Columbia 27925 | L, X |
| Thomas Farms | 8251 Oxford Rd., Timberlake 27583 | X |
| UCPRS (Swine Dev. Center) | Rt. 2, Box 400, Rocky Mount 27801 | X |
| *Real-Time Ultrasound | ||
Frank Hollowell
David Lee