Break the problem at the top of the pyramid: where is the "pig chip"?
On September 2, Liu Yonghao, chairman of New Hope Group, became the “headline” of the technology circle.
The reason comes from one of his views that day: now that a lot of original breeding pigs are imported, this pattern must be changed.
Breeding pigs is to make "pig chips", and now we must rush to solve it by ourselves.
Liu Yonghao’s point of view made Zhu Li, a professor at Sichuan Agricultural University, quite pleased. "Everyone is asking me about the'pig chip'. I am very happy to see this change."
In fact, Zhu Li has been anxious about original pigs for a long time. He revealed that research shows that in the past ten years, Sichuan imported about 2500 foreign original pigs with a total value of 100 million yuan.
In most parts of Sichuan, an 8 kg piglet sells for 1,500 to 2,000 yuan, but 90% of these piglets belong to the offspring of foreign pigs.
In the pig industry, "pig chips" have been accumulating power for a long time. In addition to New Hope Group, Dekang and other large companies have also begun to get involved in breeding pigs.
Difficulty at the top of the pyramid:
Sichuan imports about 2500 original pigs a year
Breeding pigs is to make "pig chips", is it an exaggeration?
For the relevant person in charge of the breeding department of Sichuan Tianzhao Pig Co., Ltd., it is not at all.
He has been engaged in breeding pigs for more than ten years, and his experience tells him, "The top of the entire pig breeding pyramid system is the original pigs. If there is no spire, there is no way to talk about it below. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a pig’s chip. Without a core breeding farm, if you don’t do your own breeding, you will fall into a cycle of'introduction-degradation-re-introduction-re-degeneration'."
The day before, at 2:34 am on September 1, 1,040 breeding pigs from the Kingdom of Denmark crossed the ocean and arrived at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport.
This is the first batch of Zhengbang Group Sichuan Yibin Guanglian Breeding Co., Ltd. plans to introduce 2,200 breeding pigs, and the second batch will enter the country on September 4.
"Preliminary estimates are that in the past ten years, Sichuan has imported 2,500 original foreign pigs each year through various channels, with a total value of 100 million yuan." Zhu Li, a professor at Sichuan Agricultural University, revealed that the survey showed that this round of Sichuan pigs was the biggest "blocker in the resumption of production." "One is the shortage of piglets.
In most parts of Sichuan, an 8 kg piglet sells for 1,500 to 2,000 yuan, but 90% of these piglets belong to the offspring of foreign pigs.
The "losing business" behind the "pig chip"
Long cycle, heavy investment, slow results
The above-mentioned person in charge of Tianzhao Pig Industry explained the reasons for the lack of "pig chips". On the one hand, it was because of the lack of professional breeding technicians in China in the past; on the other hand, because of the insufficient accumulation and accuracy of raw data, "the investment in breeding is high, The results are slow, far inferior to direct imports. This has also led to our country’s long-term dependence on imports for breeding pigs. Moreover, due to the imperfect breeding system, even if good breeding pigs are introduced, they cannot be effectively protected and improved. Over the years, continuous introduction has also made The population of commercial breeding pigs in China has left behind a large number of hybrids with unclear blood, leading to the mixing of some local fine breeds or even disappearing."
The person in charge said that after years of development, my country has developed from a large country of free-range farming to a country of intensive pig raising.
Compared with environmental control, nutrition, epidemic prevention and management, there is still a big gap between pig breeding and foreign countries.
my country's excellent breeding pigs are still mainly dependent on imports.
The reason why we say "breeding pigs is to make'pig chips'" is because the "chip" of genes is not good, and other aspects such as environmental control are limited. Only genes determine the upper limit of performance of breeding pigs, and only through breeding. Break the ceiling of the pig industry.
Zhu Li’s point of view is similar, “High quality is not good at price, and the breeding pig itself is like a chip, with a long cycle, a lot of investment, and slow results. Who is willing to do it?” He introduced, different from the complete genetic evaluation and In the sales system, domestic breeding pigs do not have an entry barrier.
Rather than spending time and money on breeding, it is better to directly introduce seeds from abroad and then "speculate seeds" at a good price.
The so-called "speculation" means spending money on sales promotion, with a short cycle and quick results.
pattern
Change
From scale to idea
More and more industry giants layout
Liu Yonghao said: "This pattern must be changed."
In fact, the pattern has quietly changed.
According to the person in charge of Tianzhao Pig, many companies in Sichuan are doing pig breeding.
"In layman's terms, it is to maintain the performance of the introduced'pig chip', and even improve it, form a population, localize it, and no need to introduce it again."
"Everyone is asking me about the'pig chip', I am very happy to see this change." Zhu Li said that in recent years, with the expansion of the scale of pig breeding enterprises and the change of thinking, more and more Companies including New Hope, Dekang and other large companies are doing their own breeding pigs.
While the scale of the enterprise has grown, the base number of breeding pigs has also increased.
"In the past, it was possible to pick a good gene from a hundred miles, but now that the scale is up, it can be one in a million, and the quality of breeding will naturally increase."
The "pig chip" craze in the industry is the best interpretation of quantitative changes caused by qualitative changes.
"The breeding technology itself is not much different from foreign countries. The difference is the accumulation of big data." Zhu Li said that breeding pig breeding requires the evolution of pigs from generation to generation. You must spend enough time and there is no shortcut.
"Denmark, a strong country like breeding pigs, has accumulated for hundreds of years, while our country currently only has more than 20 years."
The way is
Where
Dr. pig raising is the general trend
Research shifts from single gene to genomic selection
Where will Sichuan's breeding pig selection go in the future?
Zhu Li said that at present, large-scale breeding companies attach great importance to the research and development of pig breeding "pig chips". "Sichuan dare not say that it is the first in the country in this respect, but it has always been one of the first pilot provinces."
In Zhu Li's view, the school-enterprise joint research and development model is a major advantage of Sichuan.
At present, the breeding pigs selection of Zhu Li's team includes three directions: First, the localization of original breeding pigs imported from abroad.
"After selection and breeding, not only can the original pigs not degenerate, but some of their performance can be better."
The other is the selection and breeding of local pig breeds, including conservation and improvement.
Take the Chenghua pig as an example, first of all, it is necessary to preserve enough population to continue its original traits.
At the same time, because Chenghua pigs are fatter, they are being crossed with other pig breeds and continuously selected to breed improved breeds with moderate fatness.
"The pig genome has about 20,000 genes. Most of our previous research focused on a few single genes. Now we have switched to whole genome selection. From this perspective, the term'pig chip' is not an exaggeration. Pig raising is a real deal. In the high-tech industry, doctoral pig raising is the general trend."
More companies have also set their sights on the "pig chip". New Hope Group has a Bioengineering Research Institute and has just established a special company for breeding.
At the same time, New Hope has established a digital pig breeding research institute, dedicated to digital pig breeding, using tens of thousands of high-definition cameras, sensors and IoT systems to manage and control on the cloud.
Sichuan Tianzhao Pig Industry Co., Ltd. successively introduced 886 purebred high-quality breeding pigs from Canada in 2008, and 975 high-quality French breeding pigs from France in 2017.
In order to meet the needs of different markets in various parts of China, the company adjusted the traits and standards for breeding, and carried out genome determination on core herd pigs.
For more than ten years, the introduced breeding pigs have achieved stable genetic progress.
"Many domestic counterparts, such as Wen's Breeding Company, Chifeng Family Education, Wuhan Tianzhong, etc., have made a lot of efforts in localization and domestication and independent breeding systems." The above-mentioned person in charge of Tianzhao Pig said that they will continue to do so in the next step. Expand and enrich the group resources, continue the existing determination work; at the same time, it will carry out the special line identification and declaration of the Tianzhao line, carcass slaughter and meat quality trait improvement, research and development of disease resistance molecular breeding, gender selection research, and establishment of a frozen semen production system. A series of work to continuously improve the breeding system.