A team of public and private swine researchers last week announced test results that they say will be an important boost for the marketers of Canadian pork.
The main purebred varieties of swine used for commercial sales in Canada are almost certainly free of a genetic mutation that affects the quality and value of pork from a breed used in Europe and the United States.
“This really is excellent news for our industry,” said Alain Houde, an Agriculture Canada scientist from the Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., research station. “This is very good news, better than we expected.”
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The Duroc, Yorkshire and Landrace breeds, which are the main Canadian breeds, appear to be free of the genetic defect.
At the core of the issue is the RN negative gene, identified in France almost two decades ago in a Hampshire pig.
The gene leads to reduced liquid and brine retention during cooking or processing, reducing the weight of the meat, depressing its value and affecting the taste.
“It is a particular issue in the processing sector,” said Claude Gariépy, another Agriculture Canada researcher in Saint-Hyacinthe involved in the project.
There have been calculations that the RN negative gene can reduce the value of a hog by $14.
With a recent boom in production and processing vaulting Canada into position as the world’s top pork exporter, the industry and its customers began to wonder how widespread the mutation is in the Canadian herd and how to reduce it. It was casting a shadow over the industry.
Agriculture Canada and the pork industry-supported Canadian Centre for Swine Improvement Inc. teamed up to investigate, using a sample of 305 boars from artificial insemination centres across the country.
“We knew we would find it in the Hampshire, which is little present in this country,” said Jacques Chesnais, a CCSI researcher from Ottawa involved in the project. “We hoped we would find its presence small enough in the other, more common Canadian breeds that work could begin on reducing its presence.”
Instead, the research found that the RN negative gene is non-existent in Duroc, Yorkshire and Landrace breeds.
“We were very surprised,” said Houde.
Now, they are telling Canada’s hog and pork processors and exporters so they can assure their customers Canada’s product has another competitive advantage over product from other countries.
