Change is constant but have these monumental changes ultimately helped the industry?
Dr. Paul Yeske, a veterinarian with Swine Vet Center in Minnesota, US, recently spoke with The Pig Site’s Sarah Mikesell.
Dr. Yeske, over the last 30 years, what are some of the greatest challenges the pig industry has faced for the betterment of the industry.
There has certainly been a lot of change over that course of time that has challenged us, and in some instances, it has ultimately helped push the industry forward.
Multiple site production. One of the biggest changes we have seen has been the move to multiple site production which branched out of the segregated early weaning. Seeing some of those benefits, we have moved to multiple site production that allowed us to do more depopulation-repopulation, upgrade sow herd health, different disease eliminations without necessarily having to do a depop-repop and allowed farms to increase in size. That shift has been a momentous change in our industry.
Genetics. Historically, farmers managed their own genetics, but now they outsource their genetics. We have seen a tremendous amount of genetic improvement over the last 30 years.
PRRS & Mycoplasma. With the genetic shift came some changes in the structure and health status of herds. Unfortunately, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) came to the industry. As we learned more about PRRS, the breeding stock companies said, “We’re going to get rid of it” while producers said, “We didn’t want to buy it.” So, they went ahead and eliminated PRRS from their multiplication. As they eliminated PRRS, many of them also eliminated Mycoplasma, which was a good thing. However, it caused some instability in sow herds and created some problems that we hadn’t had in the past. We had to stabilize those herds and that led us into doing more Mycoplasmaeliminations as we saw some of those negative herds startup and how well those pigs performed. It certainly changed how we deal with disease in the industry.
Pseudorabies. Along the way, we had been dealing with Pseudorabies (PRV) elimination which finished in the late 1990s (final eradication from US commercial swine industry was 2004, after being negative for 5 years). Being able to eliminate the PRV disease on a nationwide basis was certainly a milestone for the industry. We also learned more about biosecurity throughout that period.
Diagnostics. When I first started my practice, it would take a week to get results and today the results arrive the same day. I must check my email quickly because clients are ahead of me knowing the results, so the speed of diagnostics has increased dramatically. We’ve gotten a lot of new testing mechanisms. For example, oral fluids have made testing much easier through the grow-finish farms and processing fluids in the farrowing farms. Today, we have a lot better testing that allows us to evaluate greater numbers of pigs at a lower cost. Diagnostics has evolved, offering some tremendous tools to help us answer our questions.
Data. We also have better database resources like the Swine Disease Reporting System which allows us to accumulate data for reference and use.
PEDV. Certainly, one thing we can’t forget is when Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) came into the industry, it showed us some new holes in biosecurity that we didn’t realize we had. It helped us to get those sorted out, and it pushed transmissible gastroenteritis (TGE) out of the out of the industry as well, which was not necessarily anticipated.
Records. Records have been around for a long time but certainly real-time records, getting that data on a timelier basis back to the farm, has really helped to improve record-keeping and monitoring of disease and performance.
Paul, what do you anticipate for the future of the industry?
It is difficult to predict the future. The challenge is: what are things going to be like. I think one of the things we will see in the near future, and hopefully we’ll have an answer to relatively shortly, is gene editing. It’s certainly something we hadn’t thought about before in fighting disease. It is being implemented within human medicine, and I think we’ll get the opportunity to do the same in our industry.
Another one that is already underway and I’m excited about is the US Swine Health Improvement Plan (US SHIP). It provides the ability for producers to drive their own destiny in understanding some of these disease control programs not only for foreign animal diseases, but endemic diseases that we deal with every day. It offers producers a proven platform for safeguarding, certifying, and bettering animal health. It’s all based on shared health status of swine across participating farm sites, supply chains, states and regions with the goal of mitigating risks of disease introduction and providing a practical way to demonstrate freedom of disease.
In closing, those are just a few things that are going to be new that will come to the swine industry relatively shortly, and then, we’ll see what the future brings.
