Take Homes from SHIC Wean-to-Harvest Program Enhance Biosecurity

The Swine Health Information Center, along with the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research and Pork Checkoff, joined together to fund and launch a $2.3M two-year Wean-to-Harvest Biosecurity Research Program in the fall of 2022. The goal of the research program is to investigate cost-effective, innovative technologies, protocols, and ideas to enhance biosecurity implementation during the Wean-to-Harvest phases of swine production. Results received to date provide opportunities for US pork producers to make changes to immediately enhance their biosecurity protocols.

The Wean-to-Harvest Biosecurity Research Program was developed to investigate research priorities across three areas – bioexclusion (keeping disease off the farm), biocontainment (after a break, keeping disease on the farm to lessen risk to neighbors), and transportation biosecurity (live haul, culls, markets, deadstock, and feed haul along with innovative ways to stop pathogens from moving from markets and concentration points back to the farm). To date, a total of 18 projects have received funding through this program for a comprehensive approach to advancing biosecurity of US farms and protecting swine health. Proactively enhancing wean-to-harvest biosecurity will help control the next emerging disease in the US pork industry.

Currently, six of the 18 funded projects have been completed, providing producers and veterinarians with knowledge and tools that can be applied on farms and in pork production today. This research program reflects SHIC’s responsiveness to an identified swine health vulnerability and collaborative efforts to leverage producer Checkoff funds to safeguard the health of the US swine herd.

Transport Biosecurity Take Homes

Transportation remains a concern for disease transmission within Wean-to-Harvest and other phases of production. Several key take-aways have been noted from projects completed to date:

• An updated inventory for public truck washes in the main hog producing states is now available for producers and can be located at https://www.ipic.iastate.edu/truckwash.html.
• Tools are available for producers to automatically track trailers between the farm and the plant and record sanitation status of trailers based on truck wash visits through the use of GPS-based tracking and the CleanTrailer app.
• Livestock trailer cleanliness can be objectively measured to determine sanitation status after a commercial truck wash using ATP swabs and ATP bioluminometers (more ATP = more potential microbial contamination).
• Areas of a trailer that are least likely to be adequately cleaned after a commercial truck wash are the nose access door and the back door flush gate. These areas may be targeted for on-site testing or additional cleaning.