INTERVIEW ▶▶▶
research it protrudes that the youngest generation of livestock producers has more knowledge of biosecurity than the older generations. That is necessary for achieving goals. Western Eu- rope will remain leading in this respect, providing the livestock business retains its size. But also in the rest of the world the understanding grows that growth promoters do not belong in animal feed. These countries will not escape taking out antibiotics from the feed. For the veal production industry, the challenge is particularly big. There young animals from hundreds of different mothers will meet each other in one farm house, which is a very challenging situation.”
How to start being a livestock producer that wants to produce healthy animals? “A very important issue is to increase biosecurity levels. To achieve this, producers can use our free checklist. This is available online and can be applied for every, specific farm situation. Filling it out only costs one hour. It is advisable to do this together with the farm veterinarian or with other advisors. And it’s also wise not to try to apply all suggestions in one go, but to make a plan. Other- wise producers might run the risk of getting stuck in an overload of measures, with the additional risk of losing everything.”
Wouldn’t we then just be postponing seeing results? “Not if producers would start with a small amount of measures that can make a big difference. Our scoring system will weigh the importance of every measure. It comes with a lot of algorithms. Measures that often have a big effect on a pig farm are water quality, keeping age groups together, the avoidance of overstock- ing in the pig house and a good purchasing and quarantine poli- cy, to name a few. The challenge of preventive health care has al- ways been that, contrary to curative health care, one doesn’t see any tangible results. If an animal is not sick, nothing will jump out. If in terms of health everything is running smoothly in a pig house, a pig producer will hardly pay attention. “What is nice about our BioCheck is that this biosecurity can be measured and it will demonstrate progress. A farm will achieve a mark between 0 and 100, with 100 being the optimal situation. By making it measurable, users are being stimulated to emphasise prevention. Results one can compare to the development of technical performance. For pig producers, that is what counts.”
What is the effect on production? “On average, the technical performance increases when the dis- ease pressure comes down on a pig farm. It’s a fact that a small reduction of the Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) or of mortality fig- ures can have a substantial effect on the end result. Then we are talking about big money.”
Ghent University also zoomed in on the financial side of things. What results did you achieve there? “True, we even looked into that twice. On average, farms will improve financially when biosecurity increases. We are not
16 ▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 2, 2020
talking about spectacular amounts of money here. There are no miracle solutions in livestock production. In our research, pre- dominantly in closed farms, we reach a benefit of € 43 per sow per year and € 2.70 per finisher pig place per year. Other studies show comparable numbers. “In another study we conducted, the financial gain turned out to be lower, but still positive. We compared the costs of biosecurity measures to the effect of technical performance and potential re- duction of medication costs; labour was also included in this cal- culation. What we saw is that medication costs will come down and production performance will increase. “Costs for biosecurity will be relatively limited. Think about clothes, washing hands, the ideal working lines in a pig house and closing doors, sometimes permanently. It is, however, in the heads of many pig producers, as well as veterinarians, that biose- curity is not profitable. Concepts like reduction of antibiotics us- age as well as more prevention are being experienced as the umpteenth regulation heading towards the swine industry – only costing money.”
Recently I read something that said: “Having healthy pigs is an art.” Would you agree with that? “More likely I would agree to calling it a skill, otherwise it looks like it’s only for the happy few to keep his or her pigs healthy. What does really make a difference is stockmanship. The master’s eye is extremely important. Nevertheless, it is possible at every farm to improve biosecurity and produce healthier animals. On average it is true that the larger a farm, the better the biosecurity will be. In addition, at newer farms, biosecurity is usually easier to arrange. It is a problem as soon as one goes to extremes in pro- duction, by e.g. weaning the piglets at a very young age or by working with overstocked pens. There are limits as to what one can ask from animals.”
PHOTO: KOOS GROENEWOLD
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