Ten years ago, a joint-venture pig breeding farm was established by Rattlerow Seghers in Hebei province, 250 kilometres south of Beijing.

Now, this new decade started with agreements being signed that will ensure a rapid development of the nucleus farm of Rattlerow Seghers group in China. The joint-venture partners, Hebei Yufeng Jing An breeding Co. Ltd. and Rattlerow Seghers group have agreed to increase the nucleus programme to maintain around 400.000 commercial sows within the next three years.

With these agreements, both Chinese and European partners have given their solid commitment to support the new Chinese industrial producers and improve production for the growing demand of high quality pork products.

The nucleus herd of the Rattlerow Seghers group will be increased by an import of pure line animals during next summer. At the same time, construction work has already started to extend the capacity of the nucleus farm to 600 sows.

Stefan Derks, Co-CEO, Rattlerow Seghers, said: "HebeiSeghers breeding Co Ltd. guarantees the supply of high quality pig breeding technologies to lower the cost of production. At present, around 20,000 GP sows produce parent stock in 28 provinces of China.

A dedicated team working at the nucleus farm in Hebei province will guarantee the successful breeding of pure lines of Rattlerow Seghers. Every month, nucleus data are sent to the central offices in Belgium to calculate inbreeding indexes and BLUP values to run the breeding programme in the best possible way.

With support of the most advanced European technologies and know-how from specialists from the local industry's top performing companies, Rattlerow Seghers breeding programme has the solid reputation for the production of the best carcass quality available in the market. The fast growing Chinese pig industry has recognised this quality. During 2009, around 85,000 breeding animals were produced within the Rattlerow Seghers breeding programme and were sold throughout China.