News

At the begening of December, an annual conference organized by the National Union of Pig Breeders and the International Industrial Academy took place in Moscow, The conference was focused on veterinary and hygiene issues, feed solutions, genetic potential and competencies. Commercial Director Anastasia Slobodskaya represented Otrada at the conference with the presentation “First Steps to Transforming the Industry: new format for gene transfer.”

The example of Otrada shows that with the development of competencies and the corresponding organization of selection work, breeding animals born on nucleus in Russia can compete in value with animals from Western farms, reducing dependence on the import of genetic material (pigs, boars or semen).

For the efficiency of the country's pig breeding industry, it is important to reduce the genetic gap between commercial producers and the nucleus of breeding companies, which is achieved through tools for transferring genetic potential from the top of the pyramid to commercial farms. Based on the best world practices, an important component of the infrastructure for the distribution of elite animal genes is gene transfer centers – boar studs, where boars with high genetic potential are located, from which semen is supplied to many farms in different regions of the country. This is a new paradigm for Russian pig breeding and its promotion requires time, trust from market participants and restructuring of existing approaches. One of the first steps in this direction was the opening of the Otrada Gene Transfer Center in the Lipetsk Region.