Intensive pig production – Chance or risk?
Birgit MENNERICH-BUNGE
Intensive animal production is characterised by a high biological and economic productivity with a simultaneously low input of labour, energy and space per animal. As a rule, intensive pig production results in bigger production units (herds), specialisation, standardised production procedures and regional concentration of specialised farms. The chances are a definitively increased competitiveness, a potential reduction of the environmental pollution (due to the increased productivity), and, most of all, the possibilty of a stringent quality management of the entire production process. The risks are a more fragile health status of the bigger population, which needs a more stringent management than in smaller herds, since the disease dynamics are changing with the population size. Apart from health, housing and husbandry conditions (such as flooring etc.) can have a negative impact on animal welfare. Recruiting the appropriate personnel for the demanding work in bigger specialised pig herds can be a problem under the current labour market situation. Furthermore, achieving and maintaining the acceptance of the non-agricultural society for intensive food animal production is a challenge, which has been underestimated for a too long time. Solving these problems cannot be achieved by only the farming community, but politicians and industry associations need to act as well. There is an urgent need to improve the process quality of production chains for food of animal origin by establishing systems with a high health status (vertically coordinated production chains), highly qualified consulting and highquality post gradual education programs. It has been demonstrated that there is the necessity of taking into consideration the biological needs of the animal, when health programs and husbandry systems are designed and implemented. Additionally, it needs to be tested, whether there are possibilities to increase the animals’ adaptability to modern husbandry systems by improved genetic selection procedures. With optimised management systems it is possible to produce affordable and high-quality and safe food of animal origin and yet meet the society’s demands for animal protection and for the sustainability of the production of food with and from animals.