Mora Romagnola
Pigs are from Emilia-Romagna, in northern Italy.
In the early 20th
century there were several similar but distinct regional sub-types of Romagnolo
pigs, including the Forlivese from the area o Forli, the Faentina from the area
of Faenza and the Riminese or Mora Riminese from the area of Rimini. From the
beginning of the century all of these types began to be crossed with British
Yorkshire pigs, which were first imported to the area in 1886. First-generation
crosses preserved the some of the meat quality of the local breeds, but grew
much faster. By 1927 they was recognized that indiscriminate cross-breeding
beyond the first generation lead to the disappearance of the local stock, and
in 1941 selective breeding of Romagnolo pigs began; in 1942 the breed was named
Mora Romagnola.
In 1918 there
were 335,000 Romagnolo pigs in Italy. The population declined rapidly both
before and after the Second World War, falling to 22,000 in 1950 and to a low
of 12, all in one farm, in the early 1990s. At that point the Italian World
Wildlife Fund, the Università degli Studi di Torino, and other institutions
launched a recovery project, and numbers have since increased.
A herdbook was
established in 2001 and is kept by the Associazione Nazionale Allevatori Suini,
the Italian national association of pig breeders. The conservation status of
the Mora Romagnola was listed as critical by the FAO in 2007.At the end of 2012 a population of 1063 was
reported.
The breed remains
at risk from crossing with Italian Duroc pigs; first-generation hybrids are
difficult to distinguish from pure-bred stock.
Content and photo
source: Agraia.org.
About Mora Romagnola Pigs
