Super pigs agreement will stay secret

A deal over the future of the illegally imported Danish pig genetics at the centre of the GD Pork scandal has been struck between the herd’s new owner and country’s peak pork industry body.

However, the terms of Westpork and Australian Pork Limited’s agreement regarding GD Pork’s former 2450-strong herd of super-sows will remain confidential.

GD Pork company director Torben Soerensen and farm manager Henning Laue were jailed in August for smuggling Danish pig semen in shampoo bottles into Australia.

The illegally imported genetics were used by GD Pork, which went into administration last year, to bred sows which can produce about 10 per cent more piglets than those with legitimate Australian genetics.

Westpork agreed to buy GD Pork’s Kojonup and West Pinjarra piggeries in January, in turn acquiring the more than 2450 piglets with Danish genetics.

It prompted the Australian pork industry to call for the super-sows’ genetics to be bred out, arguing Westpork was benefiting commercially from the proceeds of GD Pork’s crime.

APL chief executive Margo Andrae said the legal arrangement with Westpork was “the only viable option”, despite the pork industry’s concerns.

“The terms of Australian Pork Limited’s settlement with Westpork are confidential, but this legal arrangement was the only viable option,” she said.

“Any producer looking to deceptively achieve competitive advantage through illegally imported genetic material should face the full force of the law.

“Our focus is now to continue to protect the biosecurity of Australia’s pig herd and to ensure any relevant legislation is amended to ensure progeny cannot be acquired from any illegally obtained genetics.”

WA Pork Producers Association president and Cuballing farmer Graeme Dent said the industry must learn from the GD Pork dilemma and ensure biosecurity is promoted.

“We can’t keep looking back as an industry,” he said.

“We have to move forward and continue to make an example about biosecurity breaches.”