News Letter 112

News Letter no. 112

In this issue:

Briefly about upcoming DFA activities

Briefly about completed DFA activities

News from member companies

Overview DFA activities in 2020-21

Global Pork Meat Prices

Advertisements

Company Profile

Overview Company-members

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Newsletter 112 – overview of content

The DFA General Meeting on 12 January go digital Register latest 8 January to the zoom meeting Read more

Course for boards postponed– open for more participants Program initiates medio Octo-ber 2021 Read more

ERFA group for "pig man-agers" starts up virtually Meeting on “Teams” 18 December Read more

DFA-courses for midlevel managers in stable and fields await start-up Interested get info when Covid-19 restrictions open Read more

DFA Innovation Committee meeting great focus on CO2-emissions Short resume from the meeting Read more

Difficult travel restrictions for Danes abroad No positive results on DFA initiative to open re-strictions in Russia Read more

China has Covid-19 under control! Short report from two per-sons working in China Read more

Covid-19 cannot be transferred to pigs! Mail from US expert in public health, Dr. Heather Fowler Read more

Regional Meat Moldova Short presentation of the company in Moldova Read more

Land Law in Latvia follow up Actual status provided by Ac-tusQ Read more

Commoditrader launches cli-mate initiative targeted agricul-ture Invitation webinar 17 December Read more

IFU doubles its investment in Kenya bank Investment in Trade and Development Bank Read more

Global Pork Meat prices Overview by Genesus Read more

DFA activity plan 2020-21 Read more

Advertisements Four job positions and 4 in-vestor invitations Read more

Company profile Nedap Livestock Manage-ment Read more

DFA Company members An overview Read more

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Briefly about upcoming DFA activities

The DFA General Meeting on 12 January will go digital In January, we will not be able to hold DFA´'s general meeting as usual, followed by a conference with a

number of exciting presentations. And which at the same time gives the many participants plenty of

time to "network" – a very important discipline for our association-members. Covid-19 this time pre-

vents us from implementing this good and useful tradition.

Instead, we meet digitally at Zoom for the General Meeting and subsequent conference having Lars

Hajslund, Brandstifter as conferencier. The program will be as follows:

09:00 - 11:00 am: General Meeting

• Welcome and election of conductor

• The DFA-Board annual report

• DFA Annual accounts and budget

• Proposal for contingent

• Election to the DFA Board

• Election of auditor, proposals from the members and other matter of interest

11:00 - 12:30 am: Presentation by Lykke Friis, director of "Think Tank Europe"

• The expected political and agricultural development in Europe

• Questions to Lykke Friis

12:30 am: End of the Programme

In addition to the above program, we are currently working on offering additional informative meetings

during the January quarter - as a replacement for the traditional conference. There will be more info

about that later this year or early in 2021.

We also later send a detailed program for the general meeting directly to DFA´'s members, as well as the

DFA network in general and the program can also be viewed on DFA's website.

Further information and registration to DFA´'s secretariat. Registration no later than Friday 8 January.

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Course for boards postponed until the autumn – open for more participants As previously announced, a course for boards in DFA companies was to be conducted in January quarter

2021 in collaboration with Aarhus University. However, we have now agreed with Aarhus University to

postpone the start of the board course until the autumn of 2021, as a result of the continued Covid-19

restrictions.

The completion of this course is then planned for the following days in 2021:

• Module 1: Monday, October 27 at Aarhus BSS

• Module 2+3: Tuesday 16 - Wednesday 17 November at Hotel Comwell Kellers Park, Børkop

• Module 4+5: Tuesday 7 - Wednesday 8 December at Hotel Cowell, Kellers Park, Børkop

There are currently 13 registered, but we have ambitions to reach 20-25 participants, so there is also

“room” for you and your colleague.

Further information and registration to DFA´'s secretariat. You can read the entire course program here

ERFA group for "pig managers" starts up virtually on 18 December Having the MSP teams 2018-19 as the base group, it has been the plan throughout 2020 to start that

team as a new ERFA group for "pig managers". However, Covid-19 travel restrictions have prevented

this, which is quite a shame, as we had the team ready early in the year and a coordinator for the group

in place. To get the group started, we have decided to hold the first meeting virtually - that is, on

"Teams" with a hope that the group can meet physically later in 2021.

The group's first meeting is thus completely without "pig smell" and takes place virtually Friday 18 De-

cember at 9-11 CET (Central European Time). Rasmus Andresen from Svinerådgivningen is the coordina-

tor of the group. Participants come from 6 Eastern European countries: Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Ser-

bia, Ukraine and Russia.

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Start-up of DFA courses for middle managers in field and stable - awaiting We await the launch of both the MSP course for pig managers - as well as the CMP course for crop man-

agers - until we see openings in the Covid-19 travel restrictions. We expect it to happen in the spring at

the earliest.

We send direct information to those we already have on the list when we see incipient openings.

Those interested in the course are welcome to contact course leader Povl Nørgaard, + 45 31720145 or

mail: povl@povlnorgaard.dk - or contact the secretariat. Further information on MSP and CMP can be

found here

Briefly about completed DFA activities

DFA Innovation Committee meeting having great focus on CO2-emissions DFA's Innovation Committee met on 24 November at Hotel Trinity, Fredericia. At the meeting, the CO2

load of the agricultural companies and company members and the possibility of reducing it was one of

the points that filled the most.

Four DFA agricultural companies are participating in a pilot project with Alltech's E-CO2 department in

England. In the project, CO2 emissions in the individual production branches such as crop production,

pig production and cattle farming are mapped and summarized in a report, which the individual com-

pany can use to prioritize efforts to CO2 optimization of the entire production.

Alltech E-CO2 have partly achieved their knowledge during the environmental measurements they have

made for a number of years with English milk producers.

The Innovation Committee's company-members do not yet have a strong focus on CO2 emissions, but

the committee agreed that this will be a significant theme for them as well.

The committee agreed that DFA will hold a course/meeting on how CO2 emissions can be reduced at

both agricultural companies and with suppliers to agriculture. Experts from both Belgium and the United

States will be invited to this meeting, as these countries have high expertise in this area.

See also CommodiCarbon's invitation to an information meeting on trading in CO2 quotas below.

Other themes at the Innovation Committee meeting were: Grass protein; The ASF situation - with contri-

butions by Jan Dahl, L&F; Vertical Farming, as well as Leadership Development Courses for both agricul-

tural members and company members.

It was a good meeting of DFA´'s Innovation Committee. The group will meet again in April. The commit-

tee consists of 6 representatives of DFA Company members, as well as three representatives from DFA´s

Board. The group has existed for more than two years, and during this period has had a number of

meetings with relevant themes on the agenda.

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Travel restrictions make life difficult for Danish employees abroad Covid-19 restrictions have made "travel" difficult for all of us. However, it is especially noticeable for

Danes who work abroad, including employees employed by the DFA companies around the globe. Quar-

antine in connection with travel to and from Denmark can be the condition for being able to look after

both work and family at the same time.

It is especially difficult for Danes working in Russia. First, direct flights do not exist. The trip often goes

over Istanbul or another remote airport. Furthermore, Russia only gives permission for a single out-

bound and inbound journey - after that entry from Denmark is closed.

We have discussed this restriction with the Danish Embassy in Moscow on request, but there was no

help to be found here. We then contacted the organization Association of European Business, which

showed great willingness to help, but they also had to report passports in relation to changing the Rus-

sian rules. As it stands right now, we can only hope that a vaccine will soon make life easier for the many

skilled staff that DFA members have posted abroad to take care of their activities.

News from member companies

China has Covid-19 under control! Although Covid-19 was allegedly spread from China to most of the world, the message is nevertheless

from both Jørgen Lindberg, Scandinavian Farms and Christina Boutrup, China expert, that the country

has the disease very much under control. Economic activity figures show that China is largely back on

the growth track and that the Chinese can travel, party and live as before Corona.

China has largely contagious pathways under control, and when a small flare-up occurs, as happened at

Shanghai Airport last week, authorities are massively cracking down and mass-testing all people who

have been nearby. Furthermore, people are tracked via a health code using the widespread mobile pay-

ment app "Alipay".

The authorities generally use a lot of technology in surveillance, which we could probably learn a lot

from in Europe, although we cannot allow the same kind of surveillance that is used in China. However,

many parts of Chinese technology have come to this country - for example, Danish Crown has invested

in a new IT system with temperature scanning via "infrared" at the slaughterhouse in Ringsted.

According to both Jørgen Lindberg and Christina Boutrup, Denmark and Europe have a lot to learn from

the Chinese's technological ability.

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Covid-19 cannot be transferred to pigs - theme from DFA Development

Group meeting The press is currently discussing whether Covid-19 can be transmitted from humans to pigs. This topic

was also discussed at a meeting of DFA´s Development Group on 21 October, having reference to an ar-

ticle in a Danish agricultural magazine. After the meeting, we contacted our DFA member in the United

States, Hans Henrik Stein, Professor of Nutrition at the University of Illinois, to hear their views.

Below we bring the answer that Hans Henrik got to the question from Dr. Heather Fowler, Director of

Producer and Public Health, National Pork Board.

Her answer was as follows:

“Hi Hans,

Thanks for reaching out. There are no reports to suggest that pigs can readily be infected with and/or

transmit SARS CoV 2 to people. To date there have been just over 100 cases of COVID-19 in animals

mostly felids and dogs. There have also been a number of mink farms that have also been affected world-

wide. No other animals have been identified as of yet, not even wildlife.

As for the research, there have been a number of studies that aimed to determine if infection and trans-

mission from pigs to people was even possible. The results of these works suggest that pigs are not sus-

ceptible to the virus and cannot transmit the virus to other pigs or people. I have included reference links

and images below for you to review and share with your colleague. Please feel free to reach out if I can

be of further assistance”. -Heather Fowler

References: Positive Animals

We conclude on this basis that Covid-19 can hardly be transmitted from humans to pigs.

Presentation of the company Regional Meat Moldova The company - located one-hour drive northeast of the capital Chisinau in Moldova, was established in

2015 by 4 Danish investors. They have pig production in renovated barn buildings from a former Soviet

state farm. The buildings are of good quality and there is good infrastructure between the farm's many

buildings.

The renovation has started and so far, they have renovated some of the many stables and installed Dan-

ish equipment. At the moment there are 1.800 sow places and 7,500 places in climate stables and

11,000 slaughter pig places.

Production is sold only in Moldova - one third is sold as piglets and the rest is sold as finishers. The for-

merly good market for pork meat in the country has, with Covid-19 restrictions and the closure of Ger-

man exports to China, been somewhat pressured in 2020.

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Frederik Berg Jensen is the director of the company and, together with a Moldovan director, manages

the 70 employees in the pig production, slaughterhouse, construction department and administration,

respectively. They have succeeded in finding skilled employees locally for the work in production. Fred-

erik has experience from previous employments at Scandinavian Farm in China and from Goodvalley.

Land Law in Latvia – actual status provided by ActusQ ActusQ - the Latvian consultant and real estate company provides a status on how authorities adminis-

ter land legislation following the EU ruling which ordered the country to ease restrictions on foreign

landowners.

Now more than five months have passed since the Judgement, it is possible to have the first assessment

of the practical impact of the Judgement. No amendments have yet been made to the Law; however,

our experience shows positive developments in matters concerning obtaining consent to the acquisition

of agricultural land into ownership from local governments, which are responsible for monitoring the

lawfulness of transactions involving agricultural land.

See more here

Commoditrader launches climate initiative with economic carrot for agricul-

ture - invitation to webinar 17 December Under the name CommodiCarbon, Commoditrader launches a new climate initiative, which aims to cer-

tify and thereby compensate for the agricultural conversion to plow-free cultivation and other initiatives

within the Conservation Agriculture principles - also called carbon farming. The initiative is expected to

increase the Crop farmer's average annual contribution margin by 30-70%.

See more about the background for the initiative from CommodiCarbon here

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Special offer for DFA members

CommodiCarbon invites all DFA members to a webinar, where participants can get all information about

participating in the program this harvest year. Although CommodiCarbon has so far only been officially

launched in Denmark, the team behind it has made it possible for DFA members abroad to participate in

the program already this harvest year.

The webinar will take place on Thursday 17 December at 3:00 pm. You sign up here: You can subse-

quently watch the webinar on-demand - it just requires you to sign up via the link.

Further information about the initiative at the secretariat.

IFU doubles its investment in Trade and Development Bank to DKK 40 million USD

IFU is increasing its commitment to the Trade and Development Bank (TDB) in Kenya with an investment

of USD 20 million. The investment will help against the negative effects of covid-19 and strengthen the

bank's investments in Africa.

IFU has invested an additional $ 20 million in Class B shares in the Eastern and Southern African Trade

and Development Bank (TDB), doubling its investment in the bank to $ 40 million.

With an investment of USD 20 million, IFU was the first European investment fund to invest in TDB's B

shares in December 2019. TDB and IFU have also entered into a cooperation agreement to explore fi-

nancing opportunities in a number of key sectors and collaborate on various initiatives such as TDB's

SMEs. program, technical assistance etc.

Contact: Morten Elkjær, Vice President, Finance Sector, +45 33 44 12 36/+ 45 41 38 12 36. Mail:

moe@ifu.dk or Njeri Mungai Ngaruiya, Investment Director, +45 33 63 75 91/+ 254 712 980 553. Mail:

nng@ifu.dk

Global Pork Meat Prices Source: Genesus, 2 December 2020

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DFA Networking Activities – overview 2020-21 Month Days Activity Location Coordinator

December Wednesday 16 DFA Board meeting Fredericia DFA Secretariat

December Thursday 17 Presentation of Com-modyCarbon CO2 model

Videoplatform Ida Boesen

December Friday 18 DFA ERFA Group 21 meeting

“Teams” Rasmus Andresen

2021

January Tuesday 12 DFA annual meeting and conference

“Zoom” DFA Secretariat

January Tuesday 19 DFA-Genesi “Leader development course 3”, Module 1 (English language)

Billund Thomas Asmus-sen, Genesi

February Tuesday 16 – Friday 19

Crop Production Man-ager Program

Denmark

Povl Nørgaard and Daniel R. Damhus

March Monday 1 DFA development Group meeting

Idavang, Tofthøk Johannes V. Han-sen

March Tuesday 9 - Thursday 11

Feed mill course The Nederland Carsten Lind Pedersen and Bio-min

March Tuesday 9 – Friday 12

MSP course Povl Nørgaard

April Sunday 11 – Tuesday 13

DFA Benchmarking Group 1 meeting

Copenhagen Johannes V. Han-sen

April Sunday 11 – Tuesday 13

DFA ERFA Group 17 meeting

Denmark Jes Klausen

April Sunday 18 – Tuesday 20

DFA HR training Ukraine Sofie Hammerskov

April Tuesday 20 DFA Innovation Group Meeting

R2 Agro Hedensted DFA Secretariat

April Sunday 25 -Tuesday 27

DFA ERFA Group 20 meeting

Otrada Farms Rus-sia ??

Morten Balle Ras-mussen

May Monday 3 – Wednesday 5

DFA ERFA 4 Meeting Ireland Henrik Nielsen and Johannes V. Hansen

May Sunday 16 – Saturday 22

DFA ERFA Group 2 meeting

USA Johannes V. Han-sen and Carsten Wienke

June Wednesday 2 – Friday 4

MSP course Slovakia (Dan Slovakia)

Povl Nørgaard

June Tuesday 15 DFA conference Hotel Pejsegaarden, Brædstrup

DFA secretariat

June Wednesday 16- Friday 18

Crop Production Man-ager Program

Romania (Agro Cocora)

Povl Nørgaard and Daniel R. Damhus

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Advertisements

Production manager for 6,000 sowfarm in Xiangyang China

Danish Farm Design is searching for a highly skilled pig production manager who can assist our Danish

farm manager in China. The farm is a nucleus/multiplier farm with sows and weaned pigs up till 30 kg as

well as two sites for gilts and finishers developed by Danish Farm Concept – see www.danishfarmcon-

cept.com. At present the farm comprises 800 DanBred sows which is under expansion to 6,000 sows

See the job-description here

RBPI Russia looking for two new leading managers

Russia Baltic Pork Invest AS is located in Kaliningrad and Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. The production in Ka-

liningrad consists of 13,000 sows, full line, own feed factories and available over 11,800 ha, of which

9,400 are cultivated with rapeseed and grain crops sold for own feed production. Over the next 2 years

crop production will be expanded to include 12,000 - 13,000 ha of arable land.

Position: Manager for Crop production - see the job description here

Position: Senior Manager for Pig production - see the job description here

Job at Rubenlund Agro A/S

Rubenlund Agro AS is a large development and growth-oriented agricultural company with operation of

1750 ha of arable land, service, building/construction activities and 1.900 sows full-line with sales of

more than 60,000 finishers per year. They are looking for a manager who can independently contribute

to the further development of the crop production.

The position is to be filled at the beginning of 2021 or by further agreement.

Contact: Owner Ulrik Bremholm, phone: + 45 20201285, mail: ulrik@bremholm.dk See more at

www.rubenlundagro.dk and facebook.com/rubenlundagro.

See more about the job here

Modern and profitable crop farm for sale in Northern Lithuania

The farm operates with 1500ha of land and is located in the best arable area in Lithuania. Low-till tech-

nology is used for growing crops such as winter wheat, oilseed rape, and beans. This is a well-estab-

lished business with excellent infrastructure, extensive crop storage facilities and well-maintained ma-

chinery park. The farm has been supervised by a professional agricultural management company since

2003 concentrating especially on improving margins through consistent agronomy surveys to improve

soil quality.

Video of the crop farm in Lithuania can be found here

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Contact: Inita Vilka, Head of Sales Department, AQ AgriEstate, SIA (LLC), Valmieras 20a, Cesis, Cesu no-

vads, LV-41010, Latvia. Mail: agriestate@agriesteta.lv; Mob. + 371 28335571

Project “Farm Assist” in Ethiopia is looking for partners

The Danish embassy in Ethiopia has been contacted by Mohamed Farah, who has initiated a project

(Project Farm Assist) in the Somali Region in Ethiopia.

The embassy would like to help him and he calls for help to:

• Agricultural vehicles and implements

• Sale of quality-controlled and value-added crops of all kinds

• Outsourcing of software program extension

Contact: Hoda Mostajab, commercial & climate Program Advisor / Team Climate & Energy. Royal Danish

Embassy, Addis Ababa. Mail: HODGHO@UM.DK, Mobile: +251 911 512 699

Here is a more detailed presentation of the project described by Mohammed Farah

Sustainable palm oil investment opportunity in Ghana

The Danish company Quercus Group has entered a collaboration with Mamposa Oil Palm (MOP) Com-

pany in Ghana, a major player in the Ghanean palm oil sector who is currently expanding its activities

tremendously with an aim to become among the top 3 domestic producers of Crude Palm oil (CPO) and

Crude Palm Kernel Oil (CPKO) in Ghana.

Quercus Group can be contacted for further background and information about the investment oppor-

tunity. Contact: Michael Rottbøll, mail: michael@quercus-group.com, phone: +45 20 12 92 33

Find more information on the investment opportunity here

Ground nut project in Sierra Leone looking for investors

Project title: “Increasing groundnut production and processing in Kambia district”. This project will be

established in Kambia, district located northwestern Sierra Leone. It will directly benefit 1,000 farmers

and number of indirect beneficiaries will be above 6,000 people, most of whom are women and chil-

dren. The project will contribute to the following;

• Introducing cooperative approach to groundnut farming

• Farming for business - Increased groundnut production based on environmentally friendly farm-

ing methods

• Supporting farmers to market their produce (groundnut) for greater profitability to project

• Introduction of industrial-scale groundnut processing system in the region.

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Contact: Chernoh Jalloh, mobile: +45 41239999. Mail: c@jalloh.dk

Find detailed description of the project here

Company profile

Nedap Livestock Management

At Nedap we develop Technology for life. Technology that helps people become more successful and happier in their

professional lives. For Nedap Livestock Management this means helping professional dairy and pig producers around

the globe run a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable business.

The solutions we create enable them to automate everyday tasks and make informed decisions based on individual

animal identification and data. This way we empower livestock producers to respond to the growing global demand

for animal protein in a way that is both profitable and aligned with rising standards for animal welfare, sustainability,

transparency and the safety and quality of food.

A publicly listed company, Nedap employs more than 750 people globally, across 10 locations and seven business

units.

www.nedap-livestockmanagement.com

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Company members

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