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Since 2014, China has implemented a unified environmental regulation policy for the livestock industry. With unified environmental regulations across provinces, does the phenomenon of 'pollution havens' still exist? To address this question, this paper examines spatial variations among provinces and their spillover effects on the pig industry using data on environmental regulations and pig production panels. The results indicate that: (1) Environmental regulation policies are gradually converging across regions. (2) Under unified environmental regulation, the existence of 'pollution havens' in the pig industry is no longer evident. As national regulations become stronger, increasing local regulatory intensity will not affect the number of pig farms in neighboring areas nor lead to significant emigration of such farms. (3) In cases where there are inter-regional variations in environmental regulations, large-scale farmers may relocate to neighboring areas with less stringent regulations; however, under unified environmental regulation, neither small nor large-scale farmers will migrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of the situational analysis on porcine diseases in the Russian Federation and the expert assessment prioritizing the list of porcine pathogens significant for the pig industry of the country are presented. The method applied to analyse the expert estimates in the situational analysis allows for rapid assessment and interpretation of the situation with identification of priority diseases to be further addressed. The calculations demonstrated the sufficient degree of agreement among the experts (coefficient of concordance W = 0.61), and Pearson’s chi-squared test statistic χ2 = 51.33 (≥ 21.02607) indicated that the concordance is not random and the results can be used in subsequent studies. The specific features of epizootiology of the agents of African swine fever, classical swine fever, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome that can impact the effectiveness of biosecurity systems of pig establishments, as well as further ways for improving biosecurity management measures are discussed. The overall risk for the pig industry in the Russian Federation that is associated with external sources is currently characterized as permanently high, requiring maintaining risk management measures at the pig establishments by both the managerial staff of the establishments and the State Veterinary Service. It is recommended that biosecurity measures against external threats should focus on diseases such as African swine fever (weight λ = 0.52), porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (λ = 0.071), classical swine fever (λ = 0.068) and infections considered emerging for the Russian Federation (λ = 0.05) according to the weights based on the expert estimation results. The biosecurity systems of the establishments should equally address other threats significant for the pig industry of the country: swine enzootic pneumonia, porcine pleuropneumonia (Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae), Aujeszky’s disease, streptococcosis (Streptococcus suis), porcine circovirus infection, foot-and-mouth disease, leptospirosis, transmissible gastroenteritis, cysticercosis (λ = 0.02…0.05). The improvement of the governmental policy for eradication of African swine fever, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, classical swine fever (including the substantial modification of the existing official pig turnover control, zoning, diagnosis and prevention quality, as well as the implementation of biosecurity standards) is the most significant factor, without which the disease eradication perspective is questionable.

In recent years, the green transformation of the pig industry has made significant progress. In order to understand the variation in the efficiency of green development in the pig industry and the relevant influencing factors, the study first used the DEA model to assess the efficiency of green development in the pig industry, evaluating the changes in efficiency during the sample period. The study then utilized a panel Tobit model to analyze the influencing factors of the efficiency of green development in the pig industry. The results indicate that, from the time dimension, the green development efficiency of the pig industry showed a fluctuating upward trend during the study period, and after 2019, this trend tended to be stable and continued to rise. From the perspective of space, nine provinces, such as Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang, have improved the green development efficiency of the pig industry most significantly. Further analyzing the dynamic efficiency, we find that scale efficiency plays a key role in promoting the green development efficiency of the pig industry. In addition, resource endowment, economic development level, environmental regulation, openness, traffic accessibility and scale level have a significant positive impact on the green development efficiency of the pig industry, providing a powerful driving force for its promotion. Therefore, it is recommended to enhance the efficiency of green development in the pig industry by tapping into regional resource endowments, implementing differentiated environmental regulations, and promoting the scale of the pig industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak and continuous spread of African swine fever (ASF) since 2019 has caused serious losses to the Asian pig industry, the effective prevention and control of ASF is directly related to the stability of the pig industry. This paper evaluated the effects of ASF prevention and control measures, industrial support policies, and market regulations and proposes the recommendations for the optimizing the policies and measure of ASF control and pig industry stabilization in China by analyzing the situation of ASF in Southeast Asia, the causes of the outbreak, and the impact on the pig industry and market in Vietnam and the Philippines, the 2 biggest pig producers in the region. The results showed that the key factors contributing to the outbreak and ongoing spread of ASF in Vietnam and the Philippines were the challenge on the industry management for low scale, low biosecurity awareness, and transportation of large amounts of live pigs. Following the outbreak of ASF, the significant decreased in pork output, the sharp falled and rised of live pig prices, and the significant increased in pork imports as well as the significant transformation of pig industry chain were observed in both countries. By the reference of the prevention and control experiences of the two countries, China should increase the support on the small and medium-sized pig farms for the prevention and control of ASF to encourage their upgrading towards for modernization, accelerate the development of production scale level and organization level, improve the effect of epidemic prevention and control, strengthen the rural veterinary service system for the ability to prevent and control the major animal diseases, optimize the starting mechanism of governmental frozen pork storage to improve the effect of market intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security as a national strategy, closely links to China's economic progress, people's livelihoods and social harmony. The balance between feed grain security and meat security remains a key unresolved issue that significantly impacts China's integral food security goal. In this study, we first apply food security index to demonstrate the efficacy of the self-sufficiency rate as an indicator for evaluating the food security situation, and then evaluate meat security and feed grain security with self-sufficiency rate, as well as explore their production challenges and successful long-term development experiences based on related agricultural data. We find that the burgeoning meat consumption has made feed grains a “rigid demand”, among which pork and soybean are critical parts. Pork consumption accounts for over 65% of total meat consumption in 2020, but its self-sufficient rate is waning. Moreover, the self-sufficiency rate of soybean is as low as 0.15, and a great unit yield gap between China and the United States. However, the current production patterns have already reached their attainable potential in production efficiency due to the declining growth rate of unit yield, which also pose challenges for improving production efficiency and domestic supply of soybean. According to the projection by FAO-OECD, the growth rate of unit yield of soybean will remain stagnant from 2020 to 2030. Furthermore, the percentage of medium-scale and large-scale pig farms is remarkably low, accounting for only 0.578% and 0.013%, respectively. Further analysis indicates that large-scale production in soybean and pig industry offers notable advantages in improving production efficiency and reducing feed consumption. Finally, based on factors such as soybean sowing area, regions with high pig slaughter and scale farms, farm size and the pig regional development planning, we propose the integration of soybean-pig in large-scale production in selected possible provinces, which has the potential to improve the production efficiency of soybean and pig, to strike a balance between feed grain security and meat security. This study has practical significance in optimizing the production space of feed grains and livestock products, to improve production capability and ensure China's food security.

China has implemented an environmental protection tax for large-scale agricultural farming to address environmental pollution caused by livestock and poultry breeding. Studying the environmental management of large-scale pig farming is crucial for controlling agricultural pollution. However, the economic impact and effectiveness of the current tax design, including responsibility sharing, tax rates, and taxpayers, are unclear. This study aims to address these gaps. Firstly, two types of taxation principles, production-based and consumption-based, are established, and their effects on pollution emissions distribution between pig production and marketing areas are comparatively analyzed. Secondly, the economic impact of consumption-based environmental taxes is estimated from inter-provincial and rural–urban perspectives under the current tax mechanism. Thirdly, a new alternative tax rate aligned with inter-provincial pig consumption levels is proposed based on the consumption principle. By comparing alternative tax systems, the potential impact of the current environmental tax on the regional economic burden is analyzed. The results highlighted that a production-based tax system resulted in 83% of regions experiencing varying degrees of implicit emission transfers, and a consumption-based tax system helped coordinate the environmental economic burden between pig production and marketing regions. Additionally, a linear relationship between tax rates and pork consumption expenditure not only alleviated the overall economic burden, leading to tax savings in 30% of regions, but also increased the national environmental revenue from the pig farming industry, resulting in a remarkable 147% rise in overall environmental tax revenue. These findings provide theoretical support for adjusting responsibility and economic burden through environmental tax modifications, facilitating the establishment of a compensation mechanism for the benefits between pig production and marketing areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salmonella enterica is a causative pathogen of Salmonellosis, a zoonosis causing global disease and financial losses every year. Pigs may be carriers of Salmonella and contribute to the spread to humans and food products. Salmonella may persist as biofilms. Biofilms are bacterial aggregates embedded in a self-produced matrix and are known to withstand disinfectants. We studied the effect of glutaraldehyde and peracetic acid, two active substances frequently used in disinfectant formulations in the pig industry, on representative biofilm-residing wild-type Salmonella collected from pig housings in the United Kingdom (UK). We screened biofilm production of strains using the microtiter plate (MTP) assay and Congo Red Coomassie Blue (CRCB) agar method. Previously published stainless-steel coupon (SSCA), polyvinylchloride coupon (PCA), and glass bead (GBA) assays were used for disinfection studies. The mean reduction in the tested wild-type strains met the criterion of ≥4 log10 CFU at a disinfectant concentration of 0.05% with SSCA and GBA, and 0.005% with PCA for peracetic acid, along with 0.5% for glutaraldehyde with all three assays on the mean. At these concentrations, both tested disinfectants are suitable for disinfection of pig housings against Salmonella. When evaluating the efficacy of disinfectants, biofilms should be included, as higher disinfectant concentrations are necessary compared to planktonic bacteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only 20 years ago, Poland was self-sufficient in pig production, being one of the key players in the Euro- pean pig market. Since then a growing specialization of Poland in pig finishing and meat processing has been observed, while the domestic production of piglets has declined. As a consequence, Poland has lost its self-sufficiency in pig production and become strongly dependent on imports of piglets, mainly from Denmark. The aim of this paper is to summarize the evolution of the Polish pig industry and specify the main determinants of the Polish imports of Danish piglets. The results of the estimates using the vector error correction model (VECM) show that the volume of the Polish imports of piglets from Denmark may be explained by a degree of specialization of Poland in pig finishing, the phase of pig cycle, and the competitiveness of Polish pork. The results may be helpful in understanding the evolution of the Polish pig industry and its growing dependence on imports of piglets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: The pig production sector is a cornerstone in China's agricultural industry and it urgently needs a transition from a conventional sector to one that is efficient, sustainable, and of high quality. (2) Methods: This study examines the effects of environmental regulation (ER) on the development of the pig industry (DPI) between 2005 and 2019. From the perspective of the breeding, production, and consumption industry chain, a comprehensive evaluation index system is used to assess the progress of the pig industry. Furthermore, the effects of ER on the DPI and its mechanism were evaluated using the FGLS and system-GMM. (3) Results: According to the empirical findings, ER exhibits a U-shaped non-linear effect on DPI in both high- and low-pig-production zones. Technological innovation and large-scale farming would lessen the detrimental effects of ER on DPI. Additionally, according to the outcomes of the implementation of local environmental protection policies, LER and DPI have an inverted U-shaped relationship in major producing areas and a U-shaped relationship in non-major producing areas. (4) Conclusions: This essay offers several solutions and advice, including strengthening environmental regulation legislation and encouraging breeding industry advancements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is a country with the largest pig industry and the largest consumer of pork. The pork production in China directly affects the "vegetable basket" of urban and rural residents. With the rapid economic development, the scale of pig industry in Guangdong tops the forefront of the country. However, the pig production of Guangdong is not enough to meet the demand of local people, and pigs were brought in from neighboring provinces of Guangxi, Hunan, Hainan, Fujian and Jiangxi each year. Understanding the changes of pig production in Guangdong will help to adjust production mode and increase pig production. After thorough analysis on the pig production data in Guangdong Rural Statistical Yearbook, the results showed that the pig production capacity of Guangdong Province was increased rapidly at the early stage of the reform and opening-up and to relatively stable after the "11th Five-Year Plan". Pig production capacity was gradually transferred from the Pearl River Delta, the rapid economic development region, to the western and northern of Guangdong. Furthermore, the efficiency of pig breeding has been continuously improved and the pig breeding scale is transforming from the initial phenomena of "small, scattered and disorderly" to large-scale and intensive. At present, the pig industry in Guangdong is faced with difficulties in land use, great pressure on environmental protection, persistent epidemics, high breeding costs and other problems. In view of the problems existing in the pig industry in Guangdong Province, corresponding development countermeasures are proposed to promote the pig industry to the development of high efficiency, industrialization and ecology, which include strengthening the prevention and control of major epidemics to create a safe production environment; strengthen ing the transformation of breeding equipment to improve production efficiency and production safety; reasonably planing pig breeding to promote ecological breeding; optimizing policies and regulations to improve the breeding willingness of farmers.

Simple Summary: China is the world's largest pork producer and consumer, and pork is among the most important foods for people. Therefore, pig supply has a bearing on residents' quality of life and the security of the pig industry. However, swine epidemics such as African swine fever have led to drastic changes in pig supply. This study analyzed the mechanism of the effect of swine epidemics on nonlinear shocks to pig supply, and monthly data on pig supply from January 2012 to June 2020 were applied to study the threshold effect of swine epidemics on pig stock and slaughter in China empirically. Our results contribute to devising relevant measures for the prevention and control of swine epidemics. The pig industry is the pillar industry of animal husbandry in China, and epidemics can lead to drastic changes in pig supply, affecting the healthy development of the pig industry and residents' quality of life. This study analyzed the mechanism of the effect of swine epidemics on nonlinear shocks to pig supply, and monthly data on pig supply from January 2012 to June 2020 were applied to study the threshold effect of swine epidemics on pig stock and slaughter in China empirically, using the index of swine epidemics' width (ISEW) as the threshold variable. The results of this study were as follows: (1) The influence of the ISEW over 7 months on pig stock in China was divided into two ranges, and the pig stock did not change significantly when the ISEW was less than 0.25. Swine epidemics had a significantly negative impact on the pig stock when the ISEW was larger than 0.25. (2) The influence of the ISEW over 8 months on pig slaughter was also divided into two ranges. When the ISEW was less than 0.33, epidemics had a positive and significant effect on pig slaughter, while epidemics had a marked negative impact on pig slaughter when the ISEW was greater than 0.33. Based on these conclusions, this study proposed relevant measures for the prevention and control of swine epidemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has implemented an environmental protection tax for large-scale agricultural farming to address environmental pollution caused by livestock and poultry breeding. Studying the environmental management of large-scale pig farming is crucial for controlling agricultural pollution. However, the economic impact and effectiveness of the current tax design, including responsibility sharing, tax rates, and taxpayers, are unclear. This study aims to address these gaps. Firstly, two types of taxation principles, production-based and consumption-based, are established, and their effects on pollution emissions distribution between pig production and marketing areas are comparatively analyzed. Secondly, the economic impact of consumption-based environmental taxes is estimated from inter-provincial and rural–urban perspectives under the current tax mechanism. Thirdly, a new alternative tax rate aligned with inter-provincial pig consumption levels is proposed based on the consumption principle. By comparing alternative tax systems, the potential impact of the current environmental tax on the regional economic burden is analyzed. The results highlighted that a production-based tax system resulted in 83% of regions experiencing varying degrees of implicit emission transfers, and a consumption-based tax system helped coordinate the environmental economic burden between pig production and marketing regions. Additionally, a linear relationship between tax rates and pork consumption expenditure not only alleviated the overall economic burden, leading to tax savings in 30% of regions, but also increased the national environmental revenue from the pig farming industry, resulting in a remarkable 147% rise in overall environmental tax revenue. These findings provide theoretical support for adjusting responsibility and economic burden through environmental tax modifications, facilitating the establishment of a compensation mechanism for the benefits between pig production and marketing areas.

Salmonella enterica is a causative pathogen of Salmonellosis, a zoonosis causing global disease and financial losses every year. Pigs may be carriers of Salmonella and contribute to the spread to humans and food products. Salmonella may persist as biofilms. Biofilms are bacterial aggregates embedded in a self-produced matrix and are known to withstand disinfectants. We studied the effect of glutaraldehyde and peracetic acid, two active substances frequently used in disinfectant formulations in the pig industry, on representative biofilm-residing wild-type Salmonella collected from pig housings in the United Kingdom (UK). We screened biofilm production of strains using the microtiter plate (MTP) assay and Congo Red Coomassie Blue (CRCB) agar method. Previously published stainless-steel coupon (SSCA), polyvinylchloride coupon (PCA), and glass bead (GBA) assays were used for disinfection studies. The mean reduction in the tested wild-type strains met the criterion of ≥4 log10 CFU at a disinfectant concentration of 0.05% with SSCA and GBA, and 0.005% with PCA for peracetic acid, along with 0.5% for glutaraldehyde with all three assays on the mean. At these concentrations, both tested disinfectants are suitable for disinfection of pig housings against Salmonella. When evaluating the efficacy of disinfectants, biofilms should be included, as higher disinfectant concentrations are necessary compared to planktonic bacteria.

Copyright of Agricultural Outlook (1673-3908) is the property of Institute of Agricultural Information, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Antimicrobial resistance of pathogenic E. coli impacts the swine industry due to the limited treatment options and growing public health concerns caused by potential transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes into the food chain. The study was carried out throughout the whole year; the samples were collected from the small intestine following necropsies performed in young pigs. From a laboratory database, 78 samples were positive for E. coli and were sampled and processed in order to describe the AMR following a classical microbiological exam. Each sample was cultured on selective media (Mac Conkey Agar) and antibiograms were performed using MicroScan Walk Away System. The antibiogram examinations were performed for 20 antibiotics and the results were presented in the form of the following categories: resistant, intermediate, susceptible. In 4 of the 20 antibiotics tested, the bacterial agent showed a sensitivity of over 85% and in 6 of the 20 antibiotics, it showed resistance of over 85%. On average, 47.8±37% of E. coli showed sensitivity to the 20 antibiotics tested and 48.5±38% resistance; 3.2±4% were classified as "intermediate". Similarities were noted in terms of sensitivity and resistance between the antibiograms from animal E.coli versus human E.coli. The same sensitivity was observed in 5 of the 20 antibiotics, and in 3 of the 20 antibiotics we noticed common resistance, but a future molecular biology analysis will be performed in order to identify the genes associated with AMR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Adequate vitamin and trace mineral intake for pigs are important to achieve satisfactory growth performance. There are no data available on the vitamin and trace mineral intake across pig producers in China. The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe the amount of vitamin and trace minerals used in Chinese pig diets. Methods A 1-year survey of supplemented vitamin and trace minerals in pig diets was organized in China. A total of 69 producers were invited for the survey, which represents approximately 90% of the pig herd in China. Data were compiled by bodyweight stages to determine descriptive statistics. Nutrients were evaluated for vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, pantothenic acid, niacin, folic acid, biotin, choline, copper, iron, manganese, zinc, selenium, and iodine. Data were statistically analyzed by functions in Excel. Results The results indicated variation for supplemented vitamin (vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin B12, pantothenic acid, niacin, and choline) and trace minerals (copper, manganese, zinc, and iodine) in pig diets, but most vitamins and trace minerals were included at concentrations far above the total dietary requirement estimates reported by the National Research Council and the China’s Feeding Standard of Swine. Conclusion The levels of vitamin and trace mineral used in China’s pig industry vary widely. Adding a high concentration for vitamin and trace mineral appears to be common practice in pig diets. This investigation provides a reference for supplementation rates of the vitamins and trace minerals in the China’s pig industry.

Consumers of fresh pork have long been aware of the risk of their pork purchases not meeting eating expectations due to unpleasant taste or smell or other unsatisfactory quality characteristics such as a lack of tenderness. Boar taint, or the risk of it, is one of the most important factors identified in surveys of consumers of pork as being responsible for having a poor eating experience. Immuno-castration (IC) of entire male pigs is one method of reducing boar taint in pork. Currently about 60 per cent of male pork produced in Australia is immune-castrated. The question asked here is whether it would be profitable for the industry if the remaining male slaughter pigs were immuno-castrated as well. The additional costs associated with IC include the costs of the vaccine, extra labour costs, and additional costs arising from abscesses at the injection site causing increased product downgrades and stoppages of the slaughter line for cleaning. A major benefit of IC for the pig industry is a reduction in consumers of pork enduring poor experiences from unpleasant taste or smell when they eat pork. Over time, reducing the occurrence, and the risk of occurrence, of having a less than satisfactory experience when consuming pork has the potential benefit of the industry avoiding losing customers, and even increasing demand for pork, above what it would be with the continuation of the current proportion of boar-tainted pork in the total national supply of pork. Over the next ten years, if national consumption of pork increases at the same trend of the past decade, the benefits from avoided annual losses of demand or from increases in demand by just 0.5 per cent of total annual national consumption of pork would cover the cost of the remainder of the industry adopting IC. This conclusion applies if IC was adopted fully and immediately and the cost was the lower of the range of possible cost estimates at $0.10/kg carcass weight. More realistically, if producers adopted IC more slowly and adoption of IC took five years, and the cost of using IC was $0.10/kg carcass weight, then avoiding or preventing a loss of 1.5 per cent in annual sales would mean the total benefits exceed the total costs of achieving this outcome. Such relatively small gains in sales or avoided losses of sales seem eminently achievable. The conclusion of the BCA is that an increased use of immuno-castration in Australia's pig production system that reduces the prevalence and the risk of boar taint would have a high likelihood of delivering a net benefit to participants in the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pig industry is the basic industry of China' national economy. In order to maintain the healthy and stable development of China's pig breeding industry, through in-depth investigation, observation and analysis, this paper points out that there are problems of insufficient and unbalanced development in the current development of China's pig industry'. In accordance with the reality of our country, this paper puts forward the remedial methods and measures to maintain the sustained, healthy and stable development of pig breeding. The first is to lay a solid foundation for the nodes of the industrial chain and coordinate the development of production, supply and marketing. The second is to improve the epidemic prevention network of live pigs to ensure the healthy development of the pig industry. The third is to draw' a red line of environmental protection and adhere to the green development of the pig industry. The fourth is to improve the social service organization and promote the new development of the pig industry. These methods provide useful thinking for the further development of pig industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pig industry is the pillar industry of animal husbandry in China, and epidemics can lead to drastic changes in pig supply, affecting the healthy development of the pig industry and residents’ quality of life. This study analyzed the mechanism of the effect of swine epidemics on nonlinear shocks to pig supply, and monthly data on pig supply from January 2012 to June 2020 were applied to study the threshold effect of swine epidemics on pig stock and slaughter in China empirically, using the index of swine epidemics’ width (ISEW) as the threshold variable. The results of this study were as follows: (1) The influence of the ISEW over 7 months on pig stock in China was divided into two ranges, and the pig stock did not change significantly when the ISEW was less than 0.25. Swine epidemics had a significantly negative impact on the pig stock when the ISEW was larger than 0.25. (2) The influence of the ISEW over 8 months on pig slaughter was also divided into two ranges. When the ISEW was less than 0.33, epidemics had a positive and significant effect on pig slaughter, while epidemics had a marked negative impact on pig slaughter when the ISEW was greater than 0.33. Based on these conclusions, this study proposed relevant measures for the prevention and control of swine epidemics.

Examining the pig sector in Europe, it can be said that the emergence of African swine fever (ASF) has a major impact on the sector. In connection with this, the aim of this article was to highlight the trends of the Hungarian pig sector, as well as the sales prices of Germany for a more accurate analysis, to give a comprehensive picture of how the Hungarian market trends developed with the appearance of ASF. For this, a three-year cycle was analyzed using different timeline analysis methods. After evaluating this, it was confirmed that compared to the period before the outbreak of the epidemic in Hungary, market fluctuations increased, and in the trends of weekly sales prices per kilogram, the predictability decreased. Based on this, it can be concluded that in such a globalized and price-tracking sector, it is a serious lesson for Hungary that due to its small size and low degree of integration, it is much more disadvantaged during crisis situations than other larger pig-keeping countries. All participants in the sector need to learn from this situation and, together with the policy, change the situation in Hungary as soon as possible, by raising the vertical integration of the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the results of the earlier studies the economic losses due to African swine fever amounted to about 26.56 bln RUB (5.4% inflation-adjusted). In 2016 ASF further spread in the population of domestic pigs and wild boars in the 27 Subjects of the Russian Federation. All disease outbreaks were reported in the European part of the Russian Federation. Total of 26 infected regions were reported where ASF was diagnosed in domestic pigs and 15 infected regions were reported where ASF was detected in wild boars. In the Ivanovo Oblast the ASF was diagnosed only in wild boars (one case). In 15 RF Subjects the disease was reported both in domestic pigs and wild boars. Estimated data demonstrated that economic losses due to ASF outbreaks in domestic pigs and wild boars will amount to 7.89 bln RUB this year. Total economic losses due to ASF spread in the country in 2008-2016 will amount to about 34.45 bln RUB in monetary terms.

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In this article, we present the current social, economic and organizing aspects of African swine fever (ASF). ASF became endemic in wild boar populations in several European countries and continues to expand its range in Europe, causing very serious concerns in pig industry. The first case of ASF was noted in the Eastern Poland at the mid of 2014, and then it has moved to the Western Poland. Until 18th August 2020, 8811 cases of ASF in wild boar and 313 outbreaks of ASF in pig populations were noticed in Poland. ASF causes economic, social and also political problems. Controlling this disease in our country, one of the largest pork producers, is a very challenging task for the veterinary service, given complexity of disease epidemiology, lack of previous experience and vaccines, unprecedented geographical scope of the problem and its transboundary and multi-sectoral nature. All costs related to disease control and animals elimination, are covered by the state budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Journal of Henan Agricultural Sciences is the property of Editorial Board of Journal of Henan Agricultural Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

To detect the respiratory disease through pig cough sound in the early stage, a novel method based on Deep Neural Networks-Hidden Markov Model (DNN-HMM) was proposed to construct an acoustic model for continuous pig cough sound recognition. Noises in the continuous pig sounds were eliminated by the Wiener algorithm based on wavelet thresholding the multitaper spectrum, and the experimental corpus was obtained from the denoised continuous pig sounds. The 39-dimensional Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) extracted from the corpus were considered as feature vectors. Sounds in pig farms were divided into pig coughs, non-pig coughs, and silence segments. In the HMM, the number of hidden states of pig cough, non-pig cough and silence segments were 5, 5 and 3 respectively, and the observation states represented the feature vectors of the continuous pig sound signal. Based on experiments and empirical theory, the DNN model with 3 hidden layers and 100 nodes per layer was used to describe the correspondence between hidden states and observation serials. Through experiments, the context frames of DNN input were set to 5. Under the condition of optimal parameter setting, the traditional acoustic model Gaussian Mixture Model-Hidden Markov Model (GMM-HMM) was compared with DNN-HMM through a 5-fold cross-validation experiment. It was found that the Word Error Rate (WER) of each group in DNN-HMM was lower than that in GMM-HMM, and the average WER was 3.45% lower. At the same time, the best result of the DNN-HMM model was obtained with the lowest WER of 7.54%, and the average WER was 8.03%. The results showed that the method of DNN-HMM based acoustic model for continuous pig cough sound recognition was stable and reliable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cough is one of the most frequent symptoms in the early stage of pig respiratory diseases. So it is possible to monitor and diagnose the diseases of pigs by detecting their coughs. The existing methods for pig cough recognition are based on key word recognition technology, which cannot recognize the samples that have not been trained or learned by itself, another drawback is that the methods are for isolated coughs while the coughs of sick pigs are usually continuous. This paper intends to realize the recognition of pig continuous cough sound based on continuous speech recognition technology. Ten Landrace pigs, with a body weight of about 75 kg, were used as sound collection objects, and pig sounds were collected in pig farms during late winter and early spring when the respiratory diseases of pigs were prevalent. The sound collection devices were working continuously all day. By selecting the frequent coughing phases in the collected signal, a total of 30 h pig farm sound signals were obtained as the experimental corpus. Firstly, the sound signals were denoised by the speech enhancement algorithm based on a psychoacoustical model. Then the time-domain characteristics, including duration and energy of individual cough, were studied, and it was found that the duration of pig cough ranged from 0.24 to 0.74 s and the energy ranged from 40.15 to 822.87 V2·s. So threshold of the sound samples was set with the duration and the lower energy value of individual coughs. Based on the threshold range, the speech endpoint detection algorithm based on short-time energy was used to detect the 30 h pig field sound signals which had been preprocessed by the speech enhancement algorithm, and 222 experimental sentences were obtained. The longest was 9.14 s and the shortest was 3.91 s. All 222 corpus contained a total of 1 145 sound samples, including 751 pig coughs and 394 non-pig coughs. Sounds in the pig farm environment, including cough, sneeze, eating, scream, hum, shaking ears sounds of pigs and sounds of dogs, metal clanging and some other background noise, were divided into pig cough and non-pig cough, which were chosen as the acoustic modeling units. The labels of the experimental sentences were obtained with the help of experts. Then the 13-dimensional Mel frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC) reflecting the static characteristics of pig sound were extracted, and the first-order differential coefficients reflecting the dynamic characteristics of pig sound were added to obtain the 26-dimensional MFCC, which were used as the characteristic parameter of the experimental sentence. Finally, the bidirectional Long Short-term Memory-Connectionist temporal classification(BLSTM-CTC) model was selected to recognize the pig continuous sounds, specifically, the BLSTM network had excellent feature learning ability of continuous pig sounds, and the CTC could directly model the alignment of the input continuous pig sound sequence and its labels. Through the 5-fold cross-validation experiment and analysis, the number of hidden layer neurons in the BLSTM forward propagation process, the backward propagation process, and the fully connected layer, were all set to 300, and the learning rate was set to 0.001. The average recognition rate, error recognition rate and total recognition rate of the results of5 groups were 92.40%, 3.55% and 93.77%, respectively. Furthermore, the algorithm application test was carried out with another 1 h data, and the recognition rate reached to 94.23%, the error recognition rate was 9.09% with the total recognition rate of 93.24%. It is indicated that the pig cough sound recognition model based on continuous speech recognition technology is stable and reliable. This paper provides a reference for the recognition and disease judgment of pig continuous cough sound during the healthy breeding of pigs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Leptospirosis is a worldwide disease that impacts health, welfare and animal production. Manifestations in swine range from subclinical to severe cases of reproductive failure, generating abortions, embryonic resorption, litters with few piglets, and piglets born weak or dead, which causes great economic losses. Tropical conditions in Colombia favor transmission and maintenance of Leptospira, highlighting the importance of implementing direct diagnostic techniques such as isolation through culture to reach a definitive diagnosis. The objective of the present study was to relate reproductive indicators behavior with the presence of Leptospira spp. in two pig farms in Cundinamarca, Colombia. Materials, Methods & Results: Sows in reproductive stage in two pig farms were selected. A clinical examination of the animals was performed to demonstrate the presence of signs suggestive of Leptospirosis, also the sow records were reviewed to find reports of any of these clinical manifestations, and the average of the reproductive indicators was calculated to set which were altered in the sows. Blood and urine samples were obtained and analyzed by microscopic agglutination test (MAT) and isolation through culture, respectively. Among the altered reproductive indicators were identified: total pigs born (TPB) in 72.5%, stillbirths (SB) by 70%, mummified pigs (MUM) in a 52.5%, pre-weaning death (PWD) by 40% and the 24 h mortality (M24h) in the 20%. The 77.5% of the sows were positive by MAT. The predominant serovars of Leptospira spp. included Grippotyphosa (67.5%), Canicola (22.5%), Icterohaemorrhagiae (20%), Hardjo (17.5%) and Pomona (12.5%). The bacterium was isolated in 32.5% of the analyzed urine samples. There is increased risk of alteration in the indicators M24h (1.27), TPB (1.08), SB (1.15) and MUM (1.27) with the presence of Leptospira by isolation through culture. Discussion: The birth of weak piglets and the alteration of indicators such as SB were the most common findings in this study, which are of the major alterations caused by the bacteria because Leptospira can be located in the uterus. Positive cultures, 32.5% (13/40), indicate a high percentage of positive animals in the population. The total of positive culture results reveal that humans, pigs and other animal species from the farms and surrounding areas, are at risk of exposure to the bacteria, because these positive sows are eliminating the microorganism through urine to the environment, representing a problem for public health. This is why it is important to perform the identification of bacteria in urine. It establishes whether the animal is a carrier, although the non-detection of the microorganism in the urine does not rule out that this is a chronic renal carrier because it may indicate that at the moment of the test the animal was not excreting detectable amounts of the bacteria. The total of positive sera (77.5%) indicates a high seropositivity of swine leptospirosis in the population. Regarding serovars of Leptospira spp. identified, Grippotyphosa has the largest presentation (67.5%), therefore, as pigs are not maintenance hosts of this serovar, the results of this study suggest that synanthropic rodents that are found on farms may be transmitting the bacteria to pigs. The reproductive indicators related to the Leptospira serovars by X2 test, demonstrated significant association between the average of SB and the serovar Pomona, which has as reservoir the swine species and it is related with the production of piglets born dead, while through the Pearson correlation coefficient it was found that the greater the number of positive samples to serovar Pomona there is a greater presentation of weak piglets, and also was demonstrated that animals with Leptospira spp. have a higher risk to present alterations of the M24h, the average of TPB, SB and MUM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Agricultural Science & Technology (1008-0864) is the property of Journal of Agricultural Science & Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper tests the hypothesis that relocation of pig production within the EU27 can reduce the external costs of nitrogen (N) pollution. The external cost of pollution by ammonia and nitrate from agriculture in the European Union (EU27) in 2008 was estimated at 61-215 billion € (0.5 to 1.8% of the GDP). Per capita it ranged from more than 1000 € in north-west EU27 to 50 € in Romania. The average contribution of pig production was 15%. Using provincial data (224 NUTS2 regions in EU27), the potential reduction of external N cost by relocation of pig production was estimated at 14 billion € (10% of the total). Regions most eligible for decreasing the pig stock were in western Germany, Flemish region, Denmark, the Netherlands and Bretagne, while Romania is most eligible for increasing pig production. Relocating 20 million pigs (13% of the total EU stock) decreased average external costs per capita from 900 to 785 € in the 13 NUTS2 regions where pigs were removed and increased from 69 to 107 € in 11 regions receiving pigs. A second alternative configuration of pig production was targeted at reducing exceedance of critical N deposition and closing regional nutrient cycles. This configuration relocates pigs within Germany and France, for example from Bretagne to Northern France and from Weser-Ems to Oberbayern. However, total external cost increases due to an increase of health impacts, unless when combined with implementation of best N management practices. Relocation of the pig industry in the EU27 will meet many socio-economic barriers and realisation requires new policy incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of born piglets per litter has increased in Swedish pig industry, and farmers are struggling to improve piglet survival. A common practice is to make litters more equally sized by moving piglets from large litters to smaller to make sure that all piglets get an own teat to suckle. Litter equalization is not always enough, as many sows have large litters and/or damaged teats, which results in an insufficient number of available teats. One way to solve this problem is to use nurse sows. A nurse sow raises, and weans, her own piglets before receiving a foster litter. The objectives of this study were to address how the use of nurse sows affects the welfare of sows and piglets and to explore how it impacts the contribution margin of pig production in Sweden. A literature search was made to investigate welfare aspects on sows and piglets. As there were few published studies on nurse sows, an expert group meeting was organized. In order to explore the impact on the contribution margin of pig production, a partial budgeting approach with stochastic elements was used for a fictive pig farm. Standard templates for calculating costs and benefits were supplemented with figures from existing literature and the gathered expert opinions. In Sweden, the minimum suckling period is 28 days while published studies involving nurse sows, all from outside of Sweden, weaned the piglets at 21 days. A Swedish nurse sow will thus get longer lactation period which might increase the risk of poor body condition, damaged teats, and shoulder ulcers. This indicates a reduced welfare of the sow and may lead to impaired fertility and increased culling risk. On the other hand, the piglet mortality could be reduced with the use of nurse sows, but the separation and mixing of piglets could be stressful. The partial budgeting suggested that the nurse sow system is slightly more profitable (+6,838 Swedish krona) per farrowing group during one dry and one lactation period compared to the conventional system. The result is, however, highly dependent on the input values, and welfare aspects were not considered in the calculations.

Copyright of Arquivo Brasileiro de Medicina Veterinaria e Zootecnia is the property of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Escola de Veterinaria and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We present a local monitoring system of temperature and caudal in a pig farm. The method consists of designing an instrumentation and measurement system, this uses a wireless sensor network (WSN) based on the ZigBee standard. The WSN sends the gathered data to a server that stores the information in a database with the purpose of consulting (local queries) at any time the data that have been measured by the electronic devices. The preliminary results show that the data we can be used to infer behavior of the variables under study, besides the prototype is scalable, efficient, that makes it easily adaptable to any pig farm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the years 2001 and 2002 on seven localities in Croatiaa survey on the prevalence of brucellosis in wild boar was carried out. The survey included 271 (52.7%) female and 243 (47.3%) male animals between 7 months and 4 years of age and weighing from 14 to 135 kg. On that occasion 514 blood samples of wild boar were serologically analysed. For serological analysis indirect enzyme immunoassay (iELISA), Rose Bengal test (RBT), complement fixation test (CFT) and slow agglutination test (SAT) were used. In all of the wild boar from all of the localities investigated positive reactions to brucellosis were established. Most of the positive reactions were established by iELISA (13.6%), then by RBT (11.5%), CFT (10.5%) and SAT (8.9%). Tissue samples of 106 animals: testes samples from 67 animals, uterus tissue from 38 animals and 5 fetuses of piglets from 1 mother were analysed bacteriologically. Brucella suis biovar 2 was isolated from 18 (17.0%) animals that originated from all of the localities investigated. Isolates were identified by PCR using BRU-UP and BRU-LOW primers specific for genus Brucella and primers specific for IS711. Based on our results it could be concluded that in Croatia wild boar are natural vector and/or reservoirs of B. suis biovar 2. This permanent risk factor is hazardious for domestic and wild animals in theRepublic ofCroatia.

Limpopo is a very important area for pig production in terms of animal populations and contributions to transboundary animal disease spread. Emerging small-scale pig farmers (ESSPF) are being encouraged to establish operations and spread in South Africa; however, for these farmers to perform optimally, they need to understand the basics of animal agriculture and contribute to enhancing biosecurity and efficient production systems. In the present study, the limitations to efficient production amongst ESSPF were evaluated and some improvements were suggested. It was found that the ESSPF are dominated by males and include a large percentage of older persons. A total of 26.54% of these farmers have post-matriculation qualifications. Undefined and indigenous breeds still dominate their animal genetics. The animal health technicians are the preferred channels by which farmers report diseases to the authorities (52.47%) and only one out of five (20.37%) will preferably report a disease situation direct to a veterinarian. These farmers do not vaccinate their stock, and knowledge of biosecurity is poor. Antimicrobials, especially tetracyclines, are abused. Animals that are slaughtered within the community or sold at local sale points, pension pay stations and auction markets are likely candidates for disease spread. It is recommended that the younger generations are retained and incentivised in animal agriculture. Improved training on management, health, biosecurity and better market access must be provided for the ESSPF, whilst efforts should made to consolidate these farmers into small cooperatives. The current government agricultural support system will need to be reworked to benefit the resource-poor farmers. Collaborative efforts in disease reporting and management among veterinarians, animal health technicians and extension officers will become necessary. Finally, the creation of a progressive quality grading system for ESSPF should be planned by the industry and this should be attached to a reward system that will encourage these farmers to target good farming practice.

The genus Pneumocystis is composed of opportunistic fungi currently considered as specific pulmonary pathogens in humans and other mammals. In pigs, Pneumocystis pneumonia (PcP) could create significant economical losses due to its detrimental effects on growth, food conversion, and carcass/viscera condemnation. This study revealed that Pneumocystis organisms could be detected by Grocott's staining or immunohistochemistry in 36.9% of 564 slaughtered pigs from two geographic regions of Brazil. The prevalence of positive cases was 39.9% and 33.9% in pigs slaughtered in Rio Grande do Sul (RS) and Mato Grosso (MT) states, respectively. Among the positive cases in RS, Pneumocystis organisms were observed in 41.9% of 33 histologically normal lungs, and in 58.0% of lungs presenting with histological lesions. In contrast, the prevalence in MT in normal and abnormal lungs was 36.3% and 63.5%, respectively. Major histopathological findings in lungs of infected animals were bronchointerstitial pneumonia (47.6%), suggestive of enzootic pneumonia, and interstitial pneumonia (37.9%), compatible with PcP. The results of this survey strengthened the interest of detecting fungal pathogens, in addition to other infectious agents, and evaluating their financial impact on Brazilian pig industry. Preventive and/or therapeutic strategies should be developed in order to minimize the incidence of respiratory fungal infections in pigs and associated economic losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Denmark the poultry industry and the National Committee for Pig Production, together with the feedstuff industry, decided to voluntarily abolish the use of all Anti-microbial Growth Promoters (AGP). The poultry industry abolished the use of AGP from 15 February 1998 and the pig industry followed on 1 March 1998 (for pigs over 35 kg) and 1 January 2000 (for pigs under 35 kg). To evaluate the effects of the removal of AGP, data from both the poultry and pig industries were collected prior to and after the removal of AGP from animal feed. Utilizing these production data, this paper calculates economy-wide effects of the removal of AGP using the Agricultural Applied General Equilibrium (AAGE) model of the Danish economy. The results show that the long-term effects are a moderate decline in the production and export of pig meat, and a positive indirect effect on other industries including poultry due to lower rental rates for primary factor inputs. The overall implication is a small decline in real GDP of 0.03%, reducing public and private consumption by 68 DKK per capita per year in Denmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]