Organization and evolution of pig and
poultry breeding sectors
The modern poultry industry has a typical
hierarchical structure with several distinct tiers.
Breeding companies based mainly in Europe
and North America, with subsidiaries in major
production regions, own the pure lines. They
have to keep the whole production chain
in mind – hatcheries, egg and meat poultry
growers, processing plants, retailers and
consumers. Hatcheries (multipliers) are located
near population centres around the world. They
receive either parents or grandparents from
the breeders as day-old chicks, and produce
the final crosses for egg producers and broiler,
turkey or duck growers. Today, egg processing
plants, slaughterhouses and feed suppliers have
developed contractual relationships with egg
producers and poultry growers, which provide
the latter with better financial security, but at the
cost of reduced initiative and freedom.
The pig sector has a similar pyramidal structure,
which is largely the result of the introduction of
cross-breeding, AI and specialized breeding farms.
However, some differences exist between the
pig and the poultry sectors. For example, a pig
producer will typically obtain the “commercial”
animals by mating sows from a specialized dam
line and boars from a specialized sire line – both
genders being bought from the breeding company
(and not from a multiplier as in poultry).
In contrast to poultry, there are still breeding
associations for pigs, and national genetic
evaluation is performed. While genetic
evaluations for the large breeding companies
may be performed in-house, genetic evaluations
at the pure-breed level are conducted by
governmental institutions (e.g. by the National
Swine Registry in the United States of America) or
breed associations.
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