Pipestone Research to Investigate Cost of Disease and Returns on Disease Management Technologies Investments

A study to be conducted by Pipestone Research will calculate the cost of disease in grow finish and assess the returns when investing in biosecurity enhancements to block disease entry.

An evaluation of the Cost of Disease in Grow-Finish Production is one of two new research projects approved under the Swine Health Information Center's Wean-to-Harvest Biosecurity Research Program, co-funded by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and Pork Checkoff.Swine Health Information Center Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton says sometimes the application of different strategies and technologies to accomplish enhanced biosecurity can cost additional money.

Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Center:

It's always important to assess what are the costs of biosecurity improvements compared to the benefits they potentially provide?So, this study is assessing, what is the impact of biosecurity investments on the reduction of common diseases in different production systems and how does that improvement in animal health offset those costs?

The information will be gathered by Dr. Karyn Havas at Pipestone Research and they will be looking at common swine diseases including PRRS, PED, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae and influenza viruses in swine.Data is going to be collected from various and multiple farms in a wean to harvest system and is also going to look at the cost for those different sites across what diseases are being seen and what their production conversions will look like.

This study runs approximately two years to account for different closeouts and turns of different sites but they will assess mortality, feed conversion and average daily gain for example to understand the costs associated with production values.Then also comparing, what are the costs of biosecurity information to be able to compare the two.

Dr. Becton says the goal is to better understand the cost of disease and what costs can be offset by implementing biosecurity technology.She suggests, if producers understand the cost, they can determine where to strategically apply biosecurity interventions while maintaining swine health and keeping costs of production in line.