A Fort Collins, Colorado based analytics firm will conduct an assessment of the U.S. pork sector's biosecurity in an effort to identify and correct any gaps that might exists.
The National Pork Board and the Swine Health Information Center are funding a 12-month long project, with the collaboration of the National Pork Producers Council and the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, to identify gaps in the US pork industry's national biosecurity.
The goal is to prevent entry of foreign animal diseases by addressing the identified biosecurity gaps. Swine Health Information Center Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg says the assessment will be conducted by EpiX Analytics of Fort Collins, Colorado with input from an advisory group made up of U.S. pork producers, veterinarians, allied industry and government animal health officials.
Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
They're going to take all of the different aspects of the U.S. pork industry and analyse it for biosecurity gaps. It will end with a list of U.S. pork industry issues that will be prioritised according to the biggest gap or the biggest open window.
We'll start at the border. We'll start with Customs and Border Protection. It will include a look at feral pigs. It will include a look at market channels for both finished pigs and as well as sows. It can include feed risk and common inputs to production like vaccines and animal health products.
Garbage feeding, in cases of states that enable that flight waste to be fed to pigs after a certain amount of processing. All of the different things are going to be looked at. They'll be prioritised as far as issues for biosecurity. That's one of the reasons why we want to make sure we have an advisory group so we identify everything and we don't miss something that we need them to take a look at.
Source : Farmscape