High Herd Health Remains Saskatchewan Pork Sector's Greatest Advantages

A partner in Polar Pork Farms says high herd health remains one of the western Canadian pork sectors most precious advantages. Six years ago Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea surfaced in North America ultimately causing the loss of an estimated eight million hogs and stimulating an expanded focus on biosecurity.

 

Florian Possberg, a partner in Polar Pork Farms, says while Saskatchewan has remained PED free the risk of disease continues to escalate.

 

 

For our business, being here in North America, the most direct impact on our swine industry in 2020 was COVID because of plants that shut down in the United States and in Canada for periods of time, created big backlogs of market hogs that couldn't be harvested.

 

That really had a terrible impact on our industry for most of the late spring and summer of 2020. Internationally though African Swine fever is devastating southeast Asia, China Cambodia, Philippines, Korea, South Korea. That continues to have a big impact there.

 

It's believed that in the last two years, at the peak in China which has almost half the pigs in the world, it's estimated that they lost 65 percent of their herd at the peak of the infection and it's even spreading through Europe. It's been identified in the wild boar herds in Germany so Germany can not ship to a lot of international importers of pork and that again is having an impact on our business.

Video: Unveiling a Breakthrough Genetic Solution for Future-Proof, Sustainable Pork Production

Marcel Huijsmans, Global Marketing Director at Topigs Norsvin tells us about their new genetic solution R3silience that offers a solid alternative to how the industry can approach disease management.

R3silience delivers scientifically proven, naturally resilient pigs that thrive under disease pressure, enabling more predictable, sustainable production by reducing losses and sustaining growth under disease challenge.

R3silience pigs deliver higher survival, stronger overall performance, and healthier herds - reducing wean-to-finish mortality by up to 6 percentage points during multifactorial PRRS outbreak*.

R3silience pigs not only show higher survival, but also deliver superior growth, improving daily weight gain by up to 0.04lbs. per day under multifactorial PRRS outbreak.*

Pigs with enhanced resilience to both viral and bacterial diseases require fewer health interventions and up to 8% less antibiotic treatments from wean-to-finish*, supporting better animal welfare.

For more information visit https://topigsnorsvin.com/products/r3...