In April, 70 delegates of the great and the good in the world of pig breeding congregated at the University of Kent campus for the Pig Breeders Round Table – a small, friendly bi-annual meeting. Over the past 40 years this meeting has built up an enviable reputation as one of the best and friendliest international meetings in livestock genetics.

The scientific programme gave both academic and industrial scientists an excellent opportunity to present and discuss new results with an informed and interested audience.  Highlights included the pig genome sequence update, an update on porcine IVF – a route to global sustainability (a join presentation by Canterbury’s two Universities) as well as talks on behavioural deprivation, human trends in animal protein consumption, sexed semen, genome editing, predicting breeding values and sperm morphology. The social programme included a meat tasting session and a lovely dinner at the Marine Hotel, Whitstable.

This year the meeting celebrated its 40 anniversary, always being held in Kent – from its inception at Wye College then, since 2008 here at the University of Kent. Especial thanks go out to the sponsors, JSR Genetics, Topigs Norsvin and Genus.