A YORKSHIRE-BASED company has completed a £1m contract to supply 525 genetically-advanced breeding pigs to China.

The pigs, from ACMC of Driffield, were flown under veterinary supervision to establish a nucleus unit for a process and retailing company in Shijiazhuang City in HeBei Province.

It follows another £1m contract to supply pigs to Cambodia.

As well as producing pigs for its own use under a 20-year franchise agreement, the Chinese company will supplying improved breeding stock to other pig farmers within the province.

It will enable them to produce more than one million superiorquality pigs for slaughter a year, helping to feed HeBei’s 64m people.

Production is starting late spring/early summer.

The agreement was negotiated by Stephen Curtis, ACMC chairman, during visits to China and Chinese delegation visits to the company’s Beeford headquarters.

He said a major attraction for the Chinese was the highlyprolific Meidam damline, which was uniquely developed by ACMC.

They used the Meishan breed which, paradoxically, was imported from China in the 1980s, to boost output from European lines.

The Meidam, Britain’s newest registered purebred, combines with ACMC’s Vantage Ultra sireline boar to produce stock, which is capable of fast, lean growth and efficient feed conversion rate, without sacrificing prolificacy.

ACMC will provide a range of support services for the new nucleus herd’s genetic and general administration.

Genetic updates will be supplied via boar semen from top sires at the company’s genetic nucleus farm in the UK.

● The Far Eastern markets are considered so important that BPEX and the British Pig Association are mounting a major push to get breeding pigs and pork exported to the region.

They will attend six international shows, as part of a joint marketing programme.