Against international competition, Beeford-based pig-breeding company ACMC has secured an order from a farming company in Thailand for breeding stock worth more than £250,000.
The great-grandparent and grandparent Meidam, Volante and Vantage boars and gilts are to be used to stock a new 500-sow nucleus unit for Banglen Farms, Nakhonpathom Province, in the centre of the country.
This will enable them to expand their pig-farming operation to 1,000 sows.
The breeding stock from ACMC's high-health Oakwood nucleus in Yorkshire, were sent in three shipments over the past three months with a further three batches to be despatched over the next three months.
The order followed a visit by Mr Sathid Kasikitpongphan to ACMC's Beeford headquarters in the spring, accompanied by Mr Boonsarng Prasithphol managing director of ACMC (Asia) Ltd, and was combined with a trip to the British Pig and Poultry Fair.
Mr Sathid Kasikitpongphan was so impressed with the prolificacy of the stock and carcase quality in the slaughter generation that he is now converting a second farm to produce AC1 parent gilts as soon as imported nucleus breeding stock is available.
ACMC will also be providing technical genetic back-up services along with regular 'topping-up' shipments of genetically-improved pigs from the UK nucleus.
Management of the whole breeding operation in Thailand will be aided by PigCom, ACMC's windows-based software package which will support on-farm production as well as providing data to the ACMC's UK technical department for genetic monitoring. "This Thai nucleus is the second to be established in south-east Asia, following the one in the Philippines, put into operation last year," said Stephen Curtis, ACMC's executive chairman.
"It is a tremendous development and echoes our intention to become a serious supplier of genetically-improved breeding stock to this and other countries in the region."
