As we look forward to the next decade in 2020, I would like to offer some final thoughts regarding challenges and opportunities for the AASV in my final President’s Message. Any confronting challenge is really an opportunity waiting to happen. Here are 3 areas of opportunity for our members and leadership going forward.
African swine fever
The swine industry’s primary accomplishment over the last year was preventing African swine fever (ASF), or any other foreign animal disease, from entering the United States. This will also be our number one challenge in 2020 and beyond. The groundswell of activity and cooperation between government, industry, swine producers, and veterinarians over the last year has been exemplary – this hyper-vigilant attitude must continue. Even though ASF has now infected over 50 countries worldwide and has decimated approximately 25% of the world’s pork supply, the risk of infecting North American swine has likely already peaked. While attending the Leman China Swine Conference last September, there was surprising optimism among China’s swine industry that they have turned the corner in their fight for ASF control, as many farms were able to maintain ASF-negative pigs after cleaning, disinfecting, and proper down-time. A unique test-and-removal program called tooth pull showed promise due to quick clinical identification with pen-side polymerase chain reaction testing to allow for room or building elimination without entire farm depopulation methods. Although ASF vaccines were being used, they were not considered completely safe or effective, potentially causing more harm than good. Plum Island vaccinologists reported on a safe, efficacious gene-deleted Georgia 2 strain in early trials.1 It will still take many years for China and Southeast Asian countries to rebuild their pork supply to previous levels, which could and should be a tremendous opportunity for the US pork export market.
Expanding on our current ASF active surveillance plan and determining better surveillance to enable early ASF detection is a paramount challenge. Identifying this lowly contagious, yet highly infectious virus before hundreds of farms are infected will enable a more rapid response and eventual eradication, if ASF were to occur. Our immediate opportunity is to enroll all our farms into the Secure Pork Supply Plan so each site is prepared for ASF and will allow for expeditious business continuity in case of an outbreak.
Swine welfare and you
Attending the 2nd biennial Pig Welfare Symposium in Minneapolis last November left me encouraged and optimistic for our swine industry’s path forward with animal welfare. The AASV has at least 5 board certified members in the American College of Animal Welfare and a few more active residents. These scientists will be the animal welfare leaders for our industry and give us credibility and a voice regarding swine welfare with the American Veterinary Medical Association. The AASV, in collaboration with the US Food and Drug Administration, is also actively engaged in a pain mitigation research project to identify and validate objective standards to measure pain in pigs, and we look forward to the research results.
There are tremendous opportunities, and challenges, that exist for swine veterinarians at the grass-roots farm level regarding pig welfare:
Timely euthanasia. When to euthanize individual sick or lame pigs is very subjective and needs to be taught to our swine caretakers. Too many of these pigs are found during vet herd health checks that are either suffering, unresponsive to treatment and thus spreading disease, or of no economic value and should be humanely euthanized. It could be a subject for a subsequent welfare conference.
Disease elimination. Swine veterinarians inherently oversee swine welfare in our role of disease prevention, control, and treatment. We are experts at preventing and eliminating a plethora of serious pathogens such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, influenza A virus-swine, and yes, even ileitis. Our success is our client’s success and it is just plain fun to witness the genetic potential of healthy, disease-free pigs.
Mortality is a welfare issue. When we examine industry benchmark records for mortality, 9.8% are stillborns, 17.8% occur preweaning, 4.8% occur in the nursery, and 5.2% occur in the finisher2. These are averages! There still can be 15% to 30% less mortality on half of our farms when we identify basic problems to save more pigs. What an opportunity for swine veterinarians.
No Antibiotics Ever or Raised Without Antibiotics systems. Our challenge with these systems is to provide professional oversight so that mortality and morbidity rates do not increase and that sick pigs are treated with antibiotics appropriately and sent to another, often less economically lucrative, market. Our Veterinary Oath3 requires us to “use our scientific knowledge and skills for the benefit of society through the protection of animal health and welfare, the prevention and relief of animal suffering,…” and is a powerful statement of our responsibility toward swine welfare that we must not forget.
Food insecurity and climate change
Food insecurity in developing countries and climate change are interrelated in as much as weather extremes, such as drought, effects poor countries more severely. The challenges of these issues are massive and on a global and existential scale. Brett Stuart explained at last year’s AASV Annual Meeting that US pork is typically the most competitive in the world and there will be more mouths to feed. Global populations are rising by 78 million per year. Global incomes are rising and will pull nearly 3 billion people into the middle class from 2009 to 2030, creating rising demand for meat protein.4 With increasing efficiencies and technology in pork production, pigs need to be reared in systems that promote animal welfare and minimize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and pollution. Ironically, although extensive systems might appear to be less taxing on the environment in relation to resource use, waste treatment, and GHG emissions, scientific analysis has shown that intensive systems can actually reduce these outputs.5 Therefore, pork producers have the challenge to produce more pork to continue to feed a hungry world and the opportunity to do it in an environmental and welfare sustainable way. It is up to us to guide our clients in this endeavor.
Climate change is the greatest challenge and opportunity of our time. Let’s all individually do something, take action, and do our part to mitigate this problem upon us. My personal example is that by investing in and utilizing alternative energy sources, 90% of the electric use for Swine Services Unlimited Inc’s office and 122% of electric use for our research farm will be from solar energy by the end of 2020. This not only reduces my energy bill and income tax, it is also good for the planet by reducing GHG emissions and good for the economy. Minnesota is home to 61,000 clean energy jobs of which 3161 of these jobs are in the St Cloud area where I live.6 This could be another opportunity for today’s pig farmers to continue reducing their carbon footprint by switching to alternative and renewable energy sources. Opportunities and challenges abound for all of us.
Lastly, I consider myself blessed to be a veterinarian in this wonderful profession. Writing these messages was at times a bit painful for me because of my procrastiNATE nature, but in the end was a very rewarding experience. Thank you for the opportunity to serve the AASV in this capacity. It is an honor and privilege to be part of this great organization.
Nathan Winkelman, DVM
AASV President
References
1. Borca M, Medina ER, Silva E, Vuono E, Rai A, Pruitt S, Holinka L, Salinas LV, Zhu J, Gladue D. Development of a highly effective African swine fever virus vaccine by deletion of the I177L gene results in sterile immunity against the current epidemic Eurasia strain. bioRxiv. 2019. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/86166
*2. Industry Benchmarks. Pork Checkoff website. https://www.pork.org/facts/stats/industry-benchmarks/#AverageWean-to-FinishProductivity. Published 2018. Accessed January 16, 2020.
*3. Nolen RS. Veterinarian’s Oath revised to emphasize animal welfare commitment. AVMA website. https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2011-01-01/veterinarians-oath-revised-emphasize-animal-welfare-commitment.
Published December 19, 2010. Accessed January 16, 2020.
*4. Stuart B. Landscape and outlook for US pork in the global markets. Proc AASV. Lake Buena Vista, FL. 2019:359-362.
*5. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2019:39.
*6. Mast G. Clean energy jobs, a St. Cloud success story. St. Cloud Times. December 22, 2019. https://www.sctimes.com/story/opinion/2019/12/22/clean-energy-jobs-st-cloud-success-story/2693111001/. Accessed January 16, 2020.
* Non-refereed references.