18 PIG PROGRESS Volume 28, No. 5 2012 www.PigProgress.net

Farm visit

New meets old at the shores of the Black SeaIn one of the easternmost places of the European Union, pig farming is a mix of

both opportunities and challenges – as well as an interesting combination of

modern farming practices in a traditional country side. Degaro Farm, not far from

Constanţa, Romania, came in Danish hands in 2011, and has since stepped up its

productivity to 32 piglets/sow/y ear.

By Vincent ter Beek

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of activity in the countryside north of Constant,a. Mostly, it’s plains – end-

less fields for crop culture in summer. This winter, however, the treeless landscape,

covered under a little layer of snow, seems utterly desolate. Sporadically, the route leads through a small village, where time stands still. Elderly people and stray dogs roam the streets, its post office is in need of some repair and reg-ularly, donkey drawn carts make their way on the roads.

“The sow complex of Degaro Farm is in the middle of a forest of modern windmills,” observes Lars Drescher, unexpectedly. “They eventually want to build about 1,000 of them over here.”

Drescher, 39, is the CEO of DCH International, a Danish conglomerate of pork producers who invested part of their money in pork production abroad. Spurred by skyrocketing land prices in Denmark, many Danish pork producers decided to take their knowledge abroad, about ten years ago. They invested in new complexes abroad, some even ‘with eyes wide shut’, admits Drescher, a farm manager earlier in his career.

DCH started out investing in a project in Canada before setting its eyes on Romania. In 2006, two farrow-to-finish sites near the town of Focs,ani were bought, about 175 km north of Bucharest – and a greenfield feed mill was built in 2008. In 2011 the compa-ny found a third investment site – this two-complex farm, about 50 km north

of Constant,a, literally at the shores of the Black Sea.

LandscapeShortly before the car approaches the village of Fântânele, the landscape changes – it is covered with large white statute-like windmills in every direction possible. Somewhere in between two rows of them, the breeding farm is located – surrounded by a wall and barbed wire on top.

“As much as we hate it, we need round-the-clock guards and fences around the complexes to avoid theft,” explains Drescher.

It goes to show that producing in Romania is just not a matter of low employee costs, he stresses. “Apart from guards, we need to have more workers employed. On top of that, we need extra administrative staff to cope with bureaucracy.” “Everything we do here is in line with EU and Danish standards.”

So what is it that made the DCH group take the step to Romania? “Market opportunities,” Drescher says

Farm type: Two-site farrow-to-finish operation

Diets based on: Wheat, barley, sunflower cake, soy

Breeding site, FântâneleSize: 3,000 sows; 8,000 weaners

Genetics: Landrace x Yorkshire (dam) x Duroc (sire), all Danbred

Sow vaccinations: Erysipelas, influenza, PPV, E. coliPiglets/ sow/ year: 32; Weaning age: 26/27 days

Grower Average Daily Gain: 450 g; Grower Feed Conversion Rate: 1.76

Finisher site, PiatraFinishers sold/ year (est.): 60,800

Average Daily Gain: 900 g/day; Feed Conversion Rate: 2.82

Slaughter weight: 115 kg (lw)

Degaro Farm, Romania

Constanta

PIG PROGRESS Volume 28, No. 5 2012 19www.PigProgress.net

Farm visit

without a moment of hesitance. “We believe in the chances over here.”

OpportunitiesIn 1978, the Communist Party decided to have the two-site complex built. It was in operation for about ten years – until a Trichinella infection and a sub-sequent farm depopulation put an end to the business. Difficult years fol-lowed. The complex’s slaughterhouse remained in full swing – the rest of the eight buildings were occupied by a pro-ducer having only about 100 sows.

By 2003, Spanish pork processor Campofrio bought the complex. Using Spanish housing and equipment mate-rial to renovate the farm complex, Campofrio stayed about six years. When a contaminated shipment from western Europe, however, brought in a Brucellosis infection in 2008, Campofrio had to depopulate too, leaving the facil-ities up for whomever was interested.

It was in 2011, that Drescher went to Spain to discuss the acquisition of Degaro farm.

Breeding siteThe breeding site, near Fântânele, con-sists of thirteen pig houses, all built in pre-fabricated, standard-size commu-nist dimensions of 120 m x 18 m. At the moment, eight of them are taken into use – offering a place for a total of 3,000 sows, about 8,000 weaner pigs and about 50 Duroc boars.

Like can be expected on a project run by Danish, biosecurity and a high health status take an important place in farm management.

A fresh Danbred breeding herd with Specific Pathogen Free status was introduced on the farm in July 2011, after which the breeding farm was and has stayed closed.

Maintaining the high health status means mandatory showers for anybody wishing to enter or leave any of the pig houses. In addition, on-farm biosecurity was enhanced by the construction of ‘pig corridors’ between the gestation, lactation and weaner facilities. This allowed a structured flow of pigs from one house to the other, and the

permanent closing of other doors that had been opened in the past to facili-tate the pig movement.

Apart from these biosecurity addi-tions, many of the farm’s buildings were in dire need of renovation. In the past, DCH had tried to perform nec-essary construction works itself – in this project, Danish agricultural con-struction company Graakjaer was invoked. Steen Pedersen, DCH Agro Invest Moldova, explains that this took

The breeding farm, located near Fântânele,

is located in the middle of a windmill park.

The gestating sows are held in groups and fed by floor feeding.

Young Duroc boars for breeding purposes drink milk at a foster sow.

Lars Drescher, DCH International: “As soon as people will have more money in Romania, things will change.”

20 PIG PROGRESS Volume 28, No. 5 2012 www.PigProgress.net

Farm visit

a lot of time and effort. Throughout the whole farm, the manure system had to be changed. Too narrow pipes caused only the liquid fraction to be well pumped off to the lagoon – and the solid manure often had to be left behind under the pig houses, causing a lot of extra work. Apart from that, in virtually all houses, the feeding sys-tems were replaced by Skiold auto-matic feeding lines.

Where house 1 (H1) is used for the boars and insemination, H2 and H3 are the location for group-housed sows, fed using floor feeding. Pedersen says, “We had to replace the floors in these hous-es as the old ones were unstable and hard to clean. We constructed layers of concrete of 5-10 cm.”

H4 and H5 are the farrowing sections – it was here most work needed to be done, Pedersen explains. “Feeding used to be done here by hand. We wanted to introduce automatic feeding, so we had to turn the pens around. All the equipment and all slats had to be taken out, then the same equipment, together with new feeding systems had to be put back in again. In total we replaced the slats in two to three sections with Ikadan material, as the quality was bad.”

In addition, the existing electrical floor heating system in the farrowing rooms was also taken out and replaced by more efficient central heating, on gas and lamp-lit covers for the piglets in the farrowing areas.

In H6 and H7, used for 4,000 grower pigs (7-30 kg) each, the emphasis was on creating double capacity for the feeding system. Not two lines, but four lines had to be installed, to be able to offer four different types of feeds to diversify between age groups. In order to have this installed, all equipment needed to be taken out and put back again at a later stage.

In H8, destined for gilts, the flooring and the feeding system were replaced.

Last but not least, the Danish added two new buildings to the complex: A crematorium for dead pigs, as well as a new slurry tank. Both help to maintain the farm’s health status.

Finisher siteThe finisher farm is located in the vil-

lage of Piatra, about 25 km south of the breeder farm.

The seven-building complex, for about 16,000 finishers, is located on a slope, with the long pig buildings placed parallel on the slope’s side - one above the other.

A central, mounting corridor connects them. Of course, just as in the breeding facility, showering has been made man-datory. Often, a good clean out of the buildings was sufficient, Drescher explains. The only elements replaced there were the drinking and feeding sys-tems. The purchase of the Black Sea complex also included a feed mill, adja-cent to the finisher farm. This complex is now used as a storage facility. Most feed is produced in the feed mill in Focs,ani.

FutureTotal investments for Degaro Farm including renovation amounted to €4.8 million. Although this farm is now profitable, the pig industry in Romania as a whole is not exactly growing at the moment. Commercially produced finisher pigs have amounted to 2 million head and about the same is being produced in backyard production. The balance does not shift strongly towards more indus-trially produced pigs. It’s the financial crisis, Drescher explains. “As soon as people will have more money, things will change.” Smithfield will be the main company to benefit, having 850,000 pigs produced per year in Romania. Although substantially smaller in size, DCH comes third, together with some other breeding companies, with alto-gether about 7,500 sows and 3,000 ha land and with more acquisitions planned for the future.

So once the Romanian pig industry will really start to thrive, a front row seat is booked for DCH. Now there’s a good thought. Drescher smiles and says. “I really hope so.” PP

In addition to the people mentioned in this article, this feature has also been made possible through the kind cooper-ation of Kasper Dahl Andersen (Degaro Farm) and Michael Mikkelsen (Graakjaer).

The finisher farm in Piatra is located beautifully at the Black Sea shores.

The finisher farm offers a place to 16,000 pigs.

This former feed plant, also located in Piatra, is used for feed storage.

Romania – a sleeping giantRomania has a strong predilection for pork on the menu. When it

comes to pork production, however, the country qualifies as a sleeping

giant. Although communism brought pork self-sufficiency by founding

large state pig farms, the system’s collapse in 1989 meant that

Romania became dependent on pork imports. Even Smithfield, invest-

ing in pig production in the Timişoara area, and producing to date

about 850,000 pigs per year, has not been able to change this picture.