An overwhelming majority of all male piglets are castrated without anaesthesia when they are very young. In Sweden this means that approximately one and a half million piglets are castrated every year. The reason the piglets are castrated is the strong and unpleasant smell and taste, the ?boar taint? that the meat from intact boars sometimes exhibits. Boar taint is chiefly cause by androstenone and skatole, two compounds that are mostly produced by sexually mature boars and are accumulated in the subcutaneous fat.

Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is one of the leading causes of acute encephalitis in humans. The virus is spread by mosquitoes, mainly belonging to the Culex species. The main reservoirs are considered to be birds and pigs, with pigs constituting the most important reservoir in regard to human infection. During the last few decades the production of Pork has increased significantly in Vietnam. With 90% of pigs being kept in households owning 10 pigs or less, pigs are widely spread across most parts of the country.

This master thesis is about the collaboration between the custom dairy heifer grower and thedairy producer.The custom dairy heifer grower is a rather unusual strategy of reproductive management inSweden compared to other countries like U.S. and Denmark where the specialization withindairy production gone much further. In these countries the research also has reached muchfurther within this type of industry. However in Sweden there has been research made in thearea of collaboration, but then only within collaborations in the industries of crop production,dairy production and Pork meat.The down going trend of profitability within dairy production together with poor profitabilityin the beef industry could partly remedy if more collaborations around heifer contractingwould arise. But since the industry still is of a rare kind in Sweden the knowledge about howthese types of collaborative arrangements works and their contracts are put together is poor.By that the aim of this master thesis is formulated as follows: "how is usually thecollaborative arrangement between the dairy producer and custom dairy heifer growerdesigned".

The structural rationalization of the agricultural sector in Sweden has led to many expansive, professional companies orientated towards growth. The agricultural sector is a very capital-intense sector and is characterized by the need for large sums of capital in form of buildings, inventory and arable land. The capital need is especially large for companies who have an ambition of growth and development of the company in the near future. The study is built upon six cases that all can be categorized as large agricultural farms with a turnover exceeding 20 million Swedish crowns. The companies are located in the middle and in the south of Sweden and are in the sector of primary production with focus on dairy-, Pork-, egg-, chicken-, beef-, vegetables- and grain production as well as in the business of refining milk towards consumers. The study aims to identify the motives and driving forces that lies behind the growth of a farm-based company. The agricultural companies' motive for growth is studied based on which factors that influence the ambition to grow and to what extent these factors accord to the picture given by earlier research of small companies outside the agricultural sector.

The competitiveness and profitability of swedish farm enterprises is frequently discussed in agricultural media. Increased exposure to the surrounding world with greater competitive pressure and considerable price fluctuations in the agricultural markets demand new ways of acting to secure the agricultural sector?s long-term survival and profitability. Structural change and/or diversification leads to increased numbers of stake-holders around the farm enterprise and thereby also the expectations of the farmers ability to lead and coordinate resources. Lean is the name of a management model developed by Toyota, influenced by the lack of resources in Japan during the post WWII period.

In June 2013 a debate concerning the consumers? right to a label of origin on food packages was held in the Swedish parliament (www, Riksdagen, 2014). The debate was sparked by some food scandals where labelling was falsely used, claiming something that was not true ? the horse-meat scandal, frozen strawberries infected by Hepatitis A, Pork sold as beef, etc. These cases were not only wrong in terms of food safety, but also fraudulent and threating consumers? right to fair origin labelling.