September 18, 2009
German meat firm opposes boar fattening
VION Food Group, a meat company in Germany, will not support boar fattening and views it as an unserious alternative to the discredited castration of male piglets.
The company would not engage in unnecessary risks, said Dr. Heinz Schweer, VION Agriculture Director for Germany.
VION currently did not slaughter boars and none that had been vaccinated, Schweer said.
If German discounters were to decide to only purchase pork from females, this would split the market into three segments: pork from boars, females and barrows.
Such segmentation should be avoided as it would not lead to any price improvement, Schweer said.
Hans Jörg Schrade of the State Institute for Pig breeding (LSZ) in Boxberg pointed out that the issue of anaesthetics with castration of piglets had not been discussed for a while in public.
This was due to the global economic crisis that had overshadowed the issue, Schrade said.
Possible options to castration were boar fattening, the use only female animals through semen sexing or immunological castration of male animals with a vaccine.
