First Projects Under Wean-to-Harvest Biosecurity Program Approved

The first set of research proposals under the Swine health Information Center's 2.3 million dollar Wean-to-Harvest Biosecurity Program have now been approved.
The Swine Health Information Center, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and the Pork Checkoff have completed a review of submissions received in response an October call for proposals under the Wean-to-Harvest Biosecurity Program.

SHIC Associate Director Dr. Meagan Niederwerder says the projects will focus on developing cost-effective, innovative technologies, protocols or ideas to enhance biosecurity during the wean-to-harvest phases of production.

Clip-Dr. Meagan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:

When you think about foreign animal diseases or any transboundary animal disease you can look at the population of pigs that have the highest percent infection of endemic diseases.

It's fair to make the assumption that that same population of pigs that has the highest incidence or prevalence of endemic diseases is likely also at the highest risk for a foreign animal disease entry.

So, it's not only that we're trying to protect pigs against PEDv and PRRS and APP and anything else that we are dealing with on a daily basis with regards to endemic disease but, if we can’t protect our pigs from endemic diseases during this age range then likely we're not doing enough in the biosecurity realm to protect those pigs from a potential ASF introduction or CSF introduction.

So, really the industry has been able to shift and say we want to improve the wean-to-harvest biosecurity because we want to protect the whole industry from these foreign animal diseases and the production of pigs will also be improved if we can reduce the endemic disease prevalence.

Dr. Niederwerder says projects approved as part of the initial call for proposals will start shortly and a second call for proposals is now in the works.