Disease is the biggest of 10 problems facing China's pig farms according to a 2023 article in the Chinese industry periodical Pigs Today (今日养猪业). The author, a member of a swine industry commission, identified a cocktail of viruses and bacterial infections that keep nearly all swine herds unhealthy. Another article in the same issue focused on disease problems listed the same diseases, warned that diseases are becoming more common, new virus strains are appearing, and pigs are periodically poisoned by mycotoxins in feed.
Moreover, disease contributes to other problems identified by the Pigs Today author. Diseases undermine productivity, raise production costs, reduce the Chinese industry's international competitiveness, contribute to overuse of antibiotics, and epidemics are usually the cause of cyclical gyrations in the industry.
The pig-problem author pointed to African swine fever (ASF) as the most harmful disease and described the ASF situation as severe--even though China has not officially reported any cases since a handful in early 2022. ASF no longer kills pigs en masse as it did 5 years ago, but the virus spread widely in northern provinces each of the last two winters and moved southward before warming weather brought relief.
A year ago there was controversy about a warning of widespread ASF infections issued by a Chinese futures analysis firm. Another surge of ASF infections during the past winter remained largely covered up.
A securities company's February 2024 field trip report on the aftermath of severe disease outbreaks in Shandong Province during October-December 2023 found that severe epidemics each winter have driven many swine producers out of the market in Shandong. The province has many slaughterhouses but relatively few pigs, so Shandong imports a growing number of animals from other regions. The survey team visited a facility that specializes in butchering sows that have produced only one litter of piglets. Sows were said to be cheap (just over 6 yuan per kg) due to disease, and the enterprise's largest supplier of culled sows is China's largest hog producing company. (According to the report, sows having produced just 1 litter have a strong flavor preferred by older consumers; older sows have tougher meat).
Sichuan Province's animal husbandry association issued a document in December warning of the risk of the ASF epidemic spreading from Shandong to Sichuan and demanded that the Sichuan Province agriculture department restrict shipments from the affected region. A recent field trip report to Sichuan and Guizhou found those areas are protected from the spread of disease due to their isolated geographic location, but they also suffered severe disease outbreaks during 2023.
The Pigs Today article on swine disease said ASF and PRRS (aka "blue ear disease") are the two most complex and difficult diseases to deal with on pig farms and cause the greatest losses. PRRS has been in China since the 1990s and caused havoc during 2007 but has rarely been mentioned by authorities since then. The disease article also called out other decades-old diseases: porcine epidemic diarrhea (PEDv), classical swine fever, pseudorabies, foot and mouth disease, and swine influenza.
Many problems contribute to the growing disease problem: import of infected breeding stock, the proliferation of vaccinations--including use of unapproved vaccines containing live viruses--and indiscriminate use of antibiotics contribute to destruction of immunity, mutation and recombination of viral strains. The disease article's author warned that excessive disinfection destroys beneficial flora, damages pigs' mucosal barrier and stresses pigs.
The shift to large-scale company-owned farms was supposed to improve biosecurity, but the author pointed out that the technology and skills of workers and managers have not kept pace. Construction and management of pigs in such facilities is not based on behavioral features of pigs, he said, and there is a lack of individualized disease prevention that leads to frequent emergencies and safety accidents. Total enclosed, high-density, and lack of natural light lead to reduced resistance to infection. He said procedures for feeding, management and environmental control are not always followed on such farms. The author observes that PRRS is often spread when swine are moved between farms owned by the same enterprise. Large farms and high-rise "cluster" farms have higher incidence of PRRS, the Pigs Today author said.
The number-2 problem is cost, but this is also related to disease. The author said high cost of feed--attributed to the excessive cost of corn, soybean meal, and wheat bran in China--is one of the factors that pushes production costs one-third higher than those in North America. He also pointed to costs of disease prevention and veterinary treatment. The author said hog production costs for the two largest producers rose about.4 yuan per kilogram after ASF arrived. The pig disease expert pointed out that poor quality feed can damage animals' physiological function. Adequate protein in feed promotes healthy internal organs, reducing the ASF infection rate. China's pigs suffer when authorities restrict imports of feed grains and oilseeds to promote so-called "food security."
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