Effects of a feeding strategy to increase intramuscular fat content of pork under the conditions of organic farming

Summary

Eating quality of pork is to a high degree influenced by the intramuscular fat (IMF) content. In previous studies under standardized conditions the feeding strategy was identified as a main source of variation for the IMF content in pork. In this study the effect of the implementation of a specific feeding strategy using a high portion of home-grown grain legumes on the IMF content of pork, was assessed under different conditions on German and Austrian farms. Results showed that IMF content ranged on a comparably high level of about 2.2 %. In contradiction to previous results under standardized conditions the factor feeding had no significant influence on the IMF. The feeding effect was overlapped by heterogeneous conditions on the different farms. IMF content showed greater variation between the farms than between groups within each farm.