Two agreements signed yesterday should put the pork industry on a sounder footing, the Department of Information said yesterday. They were signed by the Rural Affairs and the Environment Ministry and the Pig Breeders Cooperative (KIM).

Their signing should show the government’s commitment to keeping the sector viable and help overcome the existing difficult situation, with the industry still seeking to find its place after EU membership. The situation was made worse with the instability in oil and cereal prices over the last two years.

One of the agreements relates to the genetics programme for pigs. It was addressing various aspects affecting the sector, which at present was not competitive and had higher production costs than in Europe.

The DOI said the government and KIM had to continue working together to ensure that the agreement would lead to the elimination of production on Comino, with breeders breeding the replacements of their sows on their own farms. Breeders should start using artificial insemination to improve production, reduce disease and cut production costs.

Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino said they needed to continue developing other parts of the strategy in the new breeding plan. They had to develop a disease analysis plan to be able to deal with diseases or eliminate them, which would reduce pig losses on the farms.

Another development in the strategic plan which definitely needed to be addressed as soon as possible was an agreement for an independent organisation, the university’s Institute of Agriculture, to conduct field trials on pig fodder. These trials were needed to establish the best recipes for pig feed in Malta’s conditions.

The second agreement established a form of aid arrived at in talks between the government and KIM. The aid is meant to ease some of the production costs increase which was not accompanied by a price increase on the international market. The one-year agreement aims to keep producers in Malta competitive at this critical juncture, but involves also a commitment for a quality improvement in pig production, new studies for a new classification of pig carcasses, and funds to develop new markets.