Swine Health Information Center Research Investment Hits Record Level in 2025

Feb 23, 2026

The Swine Health Information Center's 2025 Progress Report shows SHIC's commitment to research funding set a new record in 2025. Launched in 2015 in response to the introduction of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea, with funding provided through the Pork Checkoff, the Swine Health Information Center is focused on preventing future transboundary disease incursions through global and domestic swine health monitoring, discovery of emerging disease threats and coordinated research.

SHIC's 2025 Progress Report, released as part of its February eNewsletter, is now available at swinehealth.org.Executive Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder says 2025 saw the highest research investment since SHIC's inception.

Quote-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:

The Swine Health Information Center receives dollars from the Pork Checkoff through the National Pork Board.That's been how the center was launched and continues today.As we think about what we've been able to do with those Pork Checkoff dollars, we can look at the ability to leverage the Pork Checkoff dollars for matching and external grants that have typically, over the center's existence, been from federal sources.

One of the aspects of the 2025 progress report was a highlight about SHIC's ability to secure matching funds and external grants in the amount of over five million dollars from 2022 to 2025. This is really important because it provided approximately 49 cents of external dollars for every dollar of checkoff support we received.In 2025 we actually had the greatest research investment in the Swine Health Information Center's history.We contracted just over 4.4 million dollars of swine health research across 32 research projects in 2025.

Dr. Niederwerder says the center was able to take that checkoff dollar, leverage it with federal dollars, align priorities and increase the scientific network of individuals who are working on innovation for the pork industry.To access SHIC's 2025 Progress Report visit swinehealth.org. For more visit Farmscape.Ca.

Source : Farmscape.ca

Video: There’s a Whole Barn Buried Under This Field Now

There's old hog barns under that field now. The old hog barn site on the farm has been sitting there for decades, and this is the week it finally came out: concrete pad, burn pile, charred lumber, all of it loaded into a CAT 725C rock truck and buried in a pit we dug back in the timber.

Tork's been waiting his whole life to drive one of these, so he gets the keys to a 50,000 pound rock truck and I ride shotgun. The excavator loads, the dozer clears the timber, the drone shows the whole site from above, and by sundown there's nothing left of the old place but a smooth patch of dirt. It's a weird feeling erasing something that was here before either of us, but the farm has to keep moving.