Breeders’ rights have been officially granted for Pinpu black swine and Yuansing cattle, marking a milestone in non-governmental breeding in Taiwan, the Ministry of Agriculture’s (MOA) Taiwan Livestock Research Institute said yesterday.
Pinpu black swine and Yuansing cattle were developed through participatory breeding, in which professional breeding knowledge and techniques were provided by the public sector for industry operators to breed livestock and poultry, institute Director-General Huang Jeng-fang (黃振芳) said.
Participatory breeding is a great example of public-private partnership, he said, adding that breeding stocks are crucial to ensuring consistent quality.
Photo courtesy of GGP Biotechnology Co
The Pinpu black pig was first bred by Pin-pu Farm Corp (春發成畜牧場) founder Lee Jung-chun (李榮春) in 2008.
Taiwanese black pigs had lost their original flavor due to generations of hybridization, but he found breeding stocks with stable quality through multiple genetic screenings, Lee said.
Pinpu black swine are four times sweeter than Iberian pigs and have 1.5 times more collagen, making their meat competitive enough to be exported to Hong Kong and the Philippines, he said.
Photo courtesy of Pin-pu Farm Corp
Institute Technical Services Division chief Yang Chen-jung (楊振榮) said that breeding stocks of Yuansing cattle are descendants of work cattle introduced from Japan during the colonial period.
The work cattle have distinctive genetic characteristics as they have been stocked in Yangmingshan (陽明山) since the Japanese government retreated and have not hybridized with other strains, he said.
In 2016, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) purchased all of the work cattle — including eight bulls and 11 cows — in a project to produce Japanese-style beef using cattle in Hualien County, Yang said.
Lee Teng-hui invited Japanese experts to examine the cattle and found that Yuansing cattle are genetically closer to wagyu — Japanese breeds of beef cattle — than cattle from the West, he added.
GGP Biotechnology Co (源興居生技) chairman Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) said he had not known of Lee Teng-hui’s plan to breed the Japanese cattle until Lee asked him to invest in his breeding plan.
“I did not dare to stop him and would just do whatever he asked me to do,” he said.
Liu said he is a financial expert and did not know how to breed beef cattle, despite being born and raised in a farming family.
Liu took over the project when Lee Teng-hui, who had been diagnosed with cancer, entrusted it to him.
Liu continued to raise capital to increase his investments, which added up to NT$300 million (US$9.34 million), he said.
While more than 90 percent of domestic beef is imported, the fresh meat market looks like a promising market for Yuansing cattle, Liu said, adding that he aims to first increase the number of the cattle to meet market demand.
GGP Biotechnology general manager Chung Ti-ming (鍾迪名) said the company has commissioned small local farms to breed Yuansing cattle for consumption.
The goal is to breed 1,000 cattle within three years, with a long-term goal of 10,000 cattle, he said, adding that a Vietnamese firm with hundreds of hectares of farmland has expressed interest in the project.
TECH EFFECT: While Chiayi County was the oldest region in the nation, Hsinchu county and city, home of the nation’s chip industry, were the youngest, the report showed Seven of the nation’s administrative regions, encompassing 57.2 percent of Taiwan’s townships and villages, became “super-aged societies” in June, the Ministry of the Interior said in its latest report. A region is considered super-aged if 20 percent of the population is aged 65 or older. The ministry report showed that Taiwan had 4,391,744 people aged 65 or older as of June, representing 18.76 percent of the total population and an increase of 1,024,425 people compared with August 2018. In June, the nation’s elderly dependency ratio was 27.3 senior citizens per 100 working-aged people, an increase of 7.39 people over August 2018, it said. That
‘UNITED FRONT’: The married couple allegedly produced talk show videos for platforms such as Facebook and YouTube to influence Taiwan’s politics A husband and wife affiliated with the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) were indicted yesterday for allegedly receiving NT$74 million (US$2.32 million) from China to make radio and digital media propaganda to promote the Chinese government’s political agenda and influence the outcome of Taiwan’s elections. Chang Meng-chung (張孟崇) and his wife, Hung Wen-ting (洪文婷), allegedly received a total of NT$74 million from China between 2021 and last year to promote candidates favored by Beijing, contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) and election laws, the Chiayi District Prosecutors’ Office said. The couple acted as Beijing’s propaganda mouthpiece by disparaging Hong Kong democracy activists
EARLY ARRIVALS: The first sets of HIMARS purchased from the US arrived ahead of their scheduled delivery, with troops already training on the platforms, a source said The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday said it spotted 35 Chinese military aircraft, including fighters and bombers, flying to the south of Taiwan proper on the way to exercises in the Pacific, a second consecutive day it has reported such activities. The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not respond to a request for comment on the missions, reported just days before tomorrow’s US presidential election. The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Its arms sales to Taipei include a US$2 billion missile system announced last month. The MND said that from 9am yesterday,
A Control Yuan member yesterday said he would initiate an investigation into why the number of foreign nationals injured or killed in traffic incidents has nearly doubled in the past few years, and whether government agencies’ mechanisms were ineffective in ensuring road safety. Control Yuan member Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華) said in a news release that Taiwan has been described as a “living hell for pedestrians” and traffic safety has become an important national security issue. According to a National Audit Office report released last year, more than 780,000 foreign nationals were legally residing in Taiwan in 2019, which grew to more than
RSS