National Swine Health Strategy Expected to Benefit Pigs and the People Who Raise Them

The Director of Swine Health with the National Pork Board says the main beneficiaries of the creation of a new National Swine Health Strategy will be the people who produce pork and their pigs. As part of a coordinated industry-wide effort to improve the health of the U.S. swine herd the National Pork Board and the National Pork Producers Council have developed a National Swine Health Strategy based on input gathered from pork producers through an on-line survey conducted last fall and a series of listening sessions.

Dr. Meredith Peterson, the Director of Swine Health with the National Pork Board who is facilitating the effort, says the two main goals are preparedness and prevention of foreign animal disease and continued monitoring for and preparing a response for emerging diseases.

Quote-Dr. Meredith Peterson-National Pork Board:

At the end of the day, we intend this work to benefit pigs and producers. I think there's many positive outcomes that can come from this work but our goal is to improve the lives of our pigs and our people. Our board and the producers that we serve have identified swine health a key priority and this effort is really focused on, "let's reduce the impact of our endemic diseases and also make sure we are protecting our industry by keeping foreign and emerging diseases out."

At this point we are working to assemble an advisory committee of producers to help direct this effort in the key next steps to ensure that it continues to be producer led. I think the current starting point for each priority is a little but different, depending on what that priority specifically is but we're really at an exciting time in the industry where producers are saying here are the things we want to rally behind and now we as staff are able to help facilitate that work in the form of research and education.

Dr. Peterson says the level of producer engagement in this initiative has been encouraging and, at the end of the day, this is a strategy that will help address the top challenges identified by producers. Full details on the National Swine Health Strategy can be found at porkcheckoff.org/strategy.