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Illinois Swine Facility Feels Brunt Of Chinese Hog Ban
6th In A Series
JOHN LAROSE
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER
MidAmerica Farmer Grower
SHENYANG, CHINA
After exporting hogs to China for 35 years, that business came to a screeching halt for Freddie Grohmann of Cedar Ridge Swine Genetics of Red Bud, Ill., on May 7 when China placed a temporary ban on pork purchases from the United States. Grohmann was present for the recent Northeast China Agribusiness Trade Mission led by Michael Scuse, Under Secretary, Farm and Foreign Agriculture Service, USDA, in May.
The reason for the export ban is the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PED) that was found in some U.S. animals, though not on Grohmann’s farms.
“Asian countries are the big hitters now,” he said. “We have orders sitting for Vietnam, Malaysia and China currently, and just sent some pigs to the Philippines, Korea and Mexico. China has always been real big.” Unfortunately that order is on hold.
The amount of hogs the Growmans sell yearly varies immensely.
“Our largest year to China was about 4,800 head in one year and there was one year, three or four years ago, where they shut down the market due to the H1N1 flu virus. And that particular year we only sent them 400 hogs.”
The Growmans are selling gilts and boars both. Countries buy them at a smaller age because of freight. For China, normally they're about 150 to 180 pounds at shipping time.
“On a 747 you can fit roughly 1,100 to 1,200 head,” he explained. “That takes a lot of planning, a lot of organization and a lot of good care by someone on the plane.
“With freight costs, no one is going to order that small of a load. But we'll deal with all sizes of orders.”
The business is constantly evolving and changing to the needs of everyone. “That's why we're doing what we're doing now,” Grohmann said. “We’re doing more service after sale and bringing other things to the table; everything we sell is purebred registered animals and the National Swine Registry from Lafayette, Ind., is now offering a Chinese pedigree. So now we're able to offer a data tracking system to the Herdsman. That connects with the STAGES EPD calculation program through Herdsman, which is a data tracking system that connects with the STAGES program at the National Swine Registry. We can actually bring American pedigrees with STAGES EPDs on them for genetic calculations over to China. That's a really strong benefit for the Chinese producers.”
The swine operation was begun back in 1955 as a swine seedstock business by his father, Fred Grohmann.
“He passed away in 2001, so currently myself and my brothers are co-owners and operators of Cedar Ridge,” he explained. “We now have roughly 2,400 sows in the total seedstock production which includes three farms at Red Bud and one multiplier farm at Effingham, Ill.
“We have two boar studs. One is at Red Bud and one is at Paderborn, Ill., just about 12 miles apart. We've got 65 boars at Red Bud and 50 boars at Paderborn.”
The operation progresses through artificial insemination, and the company sells semen from some boars in the two studs.
“We also have some boars that are in public studs, some in Indiana and some in Missouri.”
The Growmans raise and harvest their own feed on the 1,200 acres they crop. All the corn they raise is fed through the swine operations.
“We make our own feed, we use McNess premix, vitamin/mineral mix with the corn and soybean meal,” he explained.
The Grohmann operation, now in its 60th year, is a project that Freddie grew into. He went full time in the business when he graduated from high school in 1986.
Freddie Grohmann of Cedar Ridge Swine Genetics of Red Bud, Ill.
viewing cuts of pork for sale in a traditional food market in Shenyang, China.
Photo by John LaRose
His father, Fred, was selling seedstock in the United States before breaking into the China market.
“Dad was trying to sell seedstock right away, as early as 1960 to commercial producers in the states,” Grohmann said. “But as far as exporting goes, we've been exporting to numerous countries for 45 years, China 35 years. The first pigs went to China in 1979.
The exporting has been organized through exporters like Ag World Exports of Bloomington, Ill., Clayton Agri-Marketing in Jefferson City, Mo. and Advanced Genetic Exports in Lexington, Ill.
“They were overseas drumming up business, bringing customers to us back home, developing the spot sale market where the customer comes, buys the seedstock and brings them back to their farms to implement them into their breeding program. We weren’t really involved in anything after the sale then. We felt that there was a big need for after sales service over here. In other words they get the pigs, bring them home and they just need a little more service after the sale. So, this is something we're starting to do the last couple of years. We offer some extra service with the sale and for certain accounts we offer the NSR pedigree connection as well,” he added.
The first exports were to some of the South American or Central American countries. Now with the Chinese ban, the Grohmanns are patiently waiting for some reprieve from the ban.
“There's a lot of discussions between Chinese officials and the USDA officials to come up with a solution to China's concern about bringing pigs back into the country that are PED positive. So they’re working to come up with a testing protocol to prevent this from happening.
Presently no one knows the outlook. “It could be tomorrow, it could be a year from now.”
At the Grohmann operation, each of the six brothers has his own responsibility or department they oversee. They get together with one another to discuss topics specific to each other’s departments about once every couple of weeks.
“We’re letting that person handle that department but reporting back every couple of weeks on their department,” Grohmann said.
He has been to China about 13 to 15 times, but knows very little of the language. The operation hooked up with Ag World in 1977, however they don’t rely totally on that exporter.
“There's about five different export companies and we maintain a working relationships with all five,” Grohmann said. They will be happy to supply any buyer who comes to them.
“Certain export companies do specialize in certain countries,” he added. “Ag World is pretty widespread in a lot of countries but we do work with all five exporters to supply pigs to numerous countries.”
The operation requires a pretty strict biosecurity for visiting any areas and especially the farrowing houses and boar stud sites.
“Actually even our own employees, any time they go in and out of any sow unit or boar stud where the nucleus animals are, they have to shower in and shower out, and make a complete change of clothes. That's pretty standard, especially nowadays with the PED virus. Most larger farms require strict biosecurity protocols,” he said.
Besides the six owners, there are 21 other employees at the Grohmann facilities.
China’s Pork Industry is 5-6 times the size of the U.S. Pork industry with numerous farms over 100,000 sows.
“The Wins Group is the largest in China for commercial operations for swine,” said Jacob Clulver of Ag World. “Last I heard, two or three years ago they were slaughtering about 30,000 a day and they also have poultry operations where they were slaughtering 5 million a day.
“The weight of the animals depends on the particular market,” he added. “In the warmer climate areas, southern China, there's more wet markets in smaller communities where they slaughter younger and sell the meat throughout the day and only slaughter what they can sell during the day.”
Depending on the size of the community, the animals could weigh from 150 pounds up to 250 pounds.
“Southern China likes extremely muscled and lean pigs whereas you get more north they like a little more fat,”Clulver explained. ∆
Editor’s Note: MAFG has scheduled for the July 25th issue an interview with US Rice Producers Association Bob Papanos. Bob is sharing his take on the potential of rice imports to China. Look for this informative interview.
The five previously published articles on US China Trade can be viewed at www.mafg.net.
JOHN M. LAROSE: Publisher, MidAmerica Farmer Grower
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER: Senior Staff Writer, MidAmerica Farmer Grower
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