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Cameras: another option for pork producers’ technology tool kits

Cameras are all around us. Phones, iPads, computers, Ring doorbells, all have become a part of our everyday lives and it’s difficult to imagine life without them. One Iowa State University faculty member is looking at how cameras in hog barns can help producers recognize sickness and behavior changes.

Joshua Peschel, associate professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering, is conducting research on cyber-agricultural systems that could assist farmers. He said consistent, reliable, accurate, and cost-effective health and behavior understanding of pigs is one of the biggest challenges faced by the swine industry today.

“My research emerges from the critical need for new and innovative tools that expand precision livestock farming for production-scale swine operations,” he said. “My students and I create new technologies, data sets, and computational models for sensing and sensemaking. In other words, we come up with new data sets, using only video, to better manage pigs.”

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ASF Control Lessons - Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith

Video: ASF Control Lessons - Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith


In this episode of The Swine it Podcast Show Canada, Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith, Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, shares what decades of work have revealed about ASF control. She explains why vaccine development remains difficult, how human activity and food waste drive disease spread, why resistant pig populations are an important research area, and how strict biosecurity with the right disinfectants can help to stop transmission. Listen now on all major platforms!

"It's really a very human-driven disease because people move pigs, decide how they're raised, how they're sold, and good biosecurity can do anything to ensure control."

Meet the guest: Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith / mary-louise-penrith-2b12bb42 is an Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. A veterinarian and internationally recognized researcher, she has dedicated decades to African swine fever epidemiology, control, and pig health, supporting FAO and WOAH initiatives while advancing research and education. Listen to Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith on the Swine Health Blackbelt Podcast, available on all major platforms.