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Swine epidemics can have very large devastating financial consequences. Governments generally bear the direct losses, such as the value of destroyed animals. Consequential losses, such as the losses resulting from empty buildings and movement standstills, are completely borne by the farmers (and other participants of the production chain) involved. In the Netherlands, as a result of the 1997/1998 epidemic of classical swine fever, the government dramatically changed its risk financing policy, so that farmers now have to pay a significant amount of the direct losses themselves. The goal of this paper is to analyze how this amount can be financed most efficiently. Risk financing instruments studied include a fund, a bank guarantee and an insurance scheme. The paper also considers the opportunities for an insurance scheme for consequential losses. Risk financing instruments are evaluated on the costs and incentives for risk prevention. Costs are analyzed by using a Monte Carlo simulation model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The average dressed weight for barrows and gilts slaughtered in the United States has increased 23% since 1977, from an annual average of 163lbs to 201lbs in 2010. This measure of pork production includes pork produced from US born and raised hogs as well as hogs imported from Canada. This paper addresses technological change in US born and raised pork production. Since pork produced from Canadian hogs could distort estimates of technological improvement and other variables describing changes in US born and raised pork production, a method of adjusting production data series for the portion of US pork production that comes from foreign-born hogs is developed. The resulting data are used to estimate the rate of change in average dressed weight, assumed to be due to technical change in the US swine herd. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper analyzes the problem faced by managers of pig fattening units when the pigs are subject to common epidemic diseases, such as respiratory diseases or Swine Influenza. The problem is defined as a simultaneous optimization of the delivery policy and control strategies for disease control. As some disease controls, such as vaccination, are implemented at the batch level and last through the lifetime of the vaccinated pigs, the problem requires that decisions are addressed at multiple timescales. Using the framework of multi-level hierarchic Markov processes a general framework was defined. The elements defining the framework were the decisions at the tactical (batch) level and the operational (daily) level. Decisions at the strategic level, e.g., decisions lasting longer than the length of a batch, were considered as constraints to the lower levels of the decision problem and not optimized. The major components of the general framework were a stochastic growth model, an epidemic model to handle within-batch spread of disease, a transition model to handle the between-batch spread of disease, and link between the growth model and the disease model and a general set of control measures. The model was illustrated using an example with Swine Influenza in an all-in-all-out production system. Results show that the optimal delivery policy and control strategies for disease interact. This suggests that decision support must adopt an integrated approach to modelling the decision complex in pig production in order to represent the full complexity of the system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper describes a modelling system developed to simulate the epidemiological and economic effects of a classical swine fever (CSF) epidemic in the Netherlands. The system consists of four interlinked models plus a spreadsheet. The models are characterised by different levels of spatial and temporal aggregation. A spatial, dynamic, stochastic epidemiological model simulates the daily spread of the disease between individual pig farms and incorporates a variety of possible control measures. A second model aggregates daily production figures over farms and days to obtain weekly output of the sector, adjusting for output reductions due to depopulation of farms and quarantine restrictions. A sector-level, partial equilibrium, market and trade model simulates the weekly clearing of the Dutch pig market, allowing for market interactions and trade in piglets, slaughter pigs and carcasses. A fourth model calculates control costs arising from the various control measures adopted, and the losses of producers subject to these measures. A spreadsheet calculates the welfare changes of producers outside quarantine areas and other affected stakeholders, and aggregates them over the duration of the epidemic. The net welfare impact on the Dutch economy is also calculated.The system is illustrated by an ex post simulation of the 1997–1998 Dutch CSF epidemic. The distribution of welfare losses between pig producers and downstream stakeholders was shown to depend on the size of the epidemic and extent to which export demand for live animals would switch to carcass demand when live animal exports are stopped. Public expenditure on control measures and compensation was strongly related to the size of the epidemic, and increased more than proportionately with the duration of the epidemic and the number of detected farms.The modelling system can be used by policy makers for both ex post evaluation of epidemic control measures, and ex ante simulations of contingency plans. It could also contribute to identifying of a set of indicators that could enable policy makers to predict the likely size and cost of an epidemic while it is at a relatively early stage. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to investigate the possibilities for improving the technical, economic and environmental performance of Dutch pig farms relative to currently applied technologies and relative to currently available but not yet applied technologies. First, the efficiency is computed relating observed pig farms to the current best practice frontier. This frontier is computed from a sample of observed pig farms, using DEA based on linear programming. Second, potential technological change is computed as the change of the frontier due to addition of virtual farms (based on technologies that are available but not applied in practice yet) to the dataset. It is found that the mean technical efficiency of farms is rather high relative to the currently available technologies. Overall technical performance increases slightly when new technologies are introduced. Environmental performance increases importantly when applying new technologies. In particular, the ammonia emissions can be reduced largely by utilising the up-to-date housing techniques. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper analyses the factors underlying the probability that Dutch pig farmers have plans to (a) stop, (b) to increase farm size and/or (re)build a barn, (c) to improve the quality of the production process and (d) to make manure processing facility at the own farm. A computer-based questionnaire was carried out among pig farmers in 1999 and 2000. Farmer plans were analysed using a multivariate probit model. The results show that farm size and life cycle are important variables explaining the probability of farmers having plans. Furthermore, risk averse farmers more frequently have plans to improve the quality of the production process, whereas farmers with a negative attitude towards biological farming search for opportunities to make a manure processing facility at their own farm. Results also reveal that most plans are significantly correlated and that the explanatory power of the model is relatively low, with the latter finding suggesting that more study is required to obtain a good understanding of strategic planning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The aims of global pig production systems include a reduction of their environmental impacts, which can be achieved through an increase in outputs whilst minimising inputs. The aim of this paper was to develop a novel method to enable estimation of the changes in the environmental impacts based on sparse data from the British pig production industry over ~20 years. To achieve this, we developed a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method capable of dealing with sparse historical data from livestock systems. We applied it, for the first time, to estimate the temporal changes in environmental impacts of British pig production systems caused by changes in production performance. Performance data available from industry-held databases for indoor and outdoor bred pigs in Britain were used to estimate nutrient requirements through animal performance modelling, and feed composition through least-cost formulation. The cradle to farm-gate LCA model developed, included manure management and the full life cycle of the pigs and its functional unit was 1 kg of live weight pig at farm-gate. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to investigate the potential influence of changes in animal performance and feed prices on the estimated changes in environmental impacts. The higher growth rates and increased leanness over the period considered led to substantial reductions in energy requirements. Overall, the system changes led to reductions, for indoor and outdoor bred systems respectively, of 37.0% and 35.4% for Global Warming Potential, 21.2% and 16.4% in Terrestrial Acidification Potential, 22.5% and 22.3% in Freshwater Eutrophication Potential, 15.8% and 16.8% in Agricultural Land Use and 16.5% and 16.1% in Fossil Resource Scarcity. The sensitivity analyses showed that trends in feed composition were influential on the environmental impact outcomes, and that the LCA model was more sensitive to the change in feed composition than to the changes in animal performance over the time period considered. Knowledge of temporal changes to the environmental impacts of livestock systems and the drivers of changes to date should guide future decisions to mitigate these impacts. The temporal development in the relative environmental impact per 1 kg of live pig at farm gate from 2000 to 2017 from indoor and outdoor bred pig systems in Great Britain. The baseline (1 unit) is the environmental impact of the systems during the time interval 2000–2002. The environmental impact categories shown are consistent with LEAP (FAO, 2018b) recommendations. The change in the environmental impacts over the study period as a mean and standard deviation of model outcomes with constant prices set to each individual year (Price sensitivity analysis). The impacts are: Global Warming Potential (GWP), Terrestrial Acidification Potential (TAP), Freshwater Eutrophication Potential (FEP), Agricultural Land Use (ALU) and Fossil Resource Scarcity (FRS). Unlabelled Image • Livestock systems, including pig production need to reduce their environmental impacts to ensure long term sustainability • We aimed to develop a method to estimate the changes in environmental impacts of British pig production over 18 years from sparse historical data • All environmental impacts were reduced, including a 37%/35% reduction in Global Warming Potential for indoor and outdoor bred pigs respectively • The LCA model was more sensitive to changes in feed composition over time than changes in animal performance • Historical LCA studies can aid decision making to reduce impacts from livestock systems by analysing the consequences of production trends [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]