Artificial insemination advances

摘要

Due to a combination of factors the UK pig industry is not what it used to be. The UK, however, is still home to many of the world's top breeding companies and Al is a key part of their breed improvement programmes. In addition to selling boars the top companies operate their own studs with semen being shipped all over the UK and abroad. These studs have increased substantially in size over the last five years as the use of Al in the UK has increased dramatically. Ironically some of this increase can be attributed to the massive foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001. The normal supply of replacement boars was banned and so many producers had to turn to Al.