The Pork Checkoff continues to plan for the day when the US pork industry will get the bad news that foot-and-mouth disease, classical swine fever, or African swine fever has been diagnosed in the United States. While we understand that livestock movement restrictions will be put into place, what should each pork producer do to help mitigate losses and prove their site is disease-free? Answers to those questions and more are discussed in the National Pork Board’s new Secure Pork Supply (SPS) plan guide. This 12-page booklet, created in collaboration with Iowa State University, covers the SPS plan’s essentials and helps explain how the program will work as the industry will try to normalize itself post-outbreak and provide a better path to business continuity. The resource is available electronically online via the Checkoff’s Pork Store and by searching on pork.org.

For more information, contact Patrick Webb, PWebb@pork.org or 515-223-3441.

Secure Pork Supply plan moves ahead

It’s full steam ahead for the nation’s Secure Pork Supply (SPS) plan. Work continues toward completing the necessary business continuity software that will share real-time industry data to animal health officials when every second will count during a foreign animal disease (FAD) outbreak.

The software and its associated dashboards will deliver data in a unique and practical way to allow users to make management decisions more quickly than before because of the ability to display data that is easily digestible. This will be invaluable in the face of a FAD outbreak where movement of low-risk pigs and a return to normal business will be of utmost importance.

While the threat posed by FADs is driving the SPS plan and software development, the system will be useful for more everyday disease-monitoring purposes and will allow users to share information and track any disease they may elect. This can serve as a great tool to help producers and their veterinarians make better disease management and production decisions.

The intent is to have the software developed in the first half of 2019, which is when producers can begin officially registering for the voluntary SPS program. The SPS plan is the result of ongoing collaboration between the US Department of Agriculture, the National Pork Board, the National Pork Producers Council, the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, academia, and other state and federal partners.

For more information, contact Patrick Webb, PWebb@pork.org or 515-223-3441.

New General Swine Disease booklet available

The National Pork Board announces that the new General Swine Disease Research 2004-2018 booklet is now available. This 84-page edition succeeds the 2012 edition and is aimed at providing producers, veterinarians and veterinary researchers an informational resource of Checkoff-funded research that focuses on endemic, domestic swine diseases. The resource is available electronically online via the Checkoff’s Pork Store and by searching on pork.org.

For more information, contact Lisa Becton, LBecton@pork.org or 515-223-2791.

Checkoff touts sustainability

Today’s pig farmers have embraced sustainability metrics that measure key inputs of water, land, and energy, while calculating the overall carbon footprint of production as well. New research by the University of Arkansas shows that the overall positive trend line of these metrics continues when comparing 2010 baseline data to 2015 data from US pig farms. This can likely be credited to continuous on-farm improvements in areas such as nutrition, genetics, and overall herd health management.

For more information, contact Allan Stokes, AStokes@pork.org or 515-223-3447.