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Yorkshire and Humberside Health

June 13

We can defuse the backyard timebomb

The English pig industry may soon be able to get to grips with the problem of “backyarders”, thanks to Marcus Bates, of the British Pig Association, and pig feed specialist Rod Tuck.

If you are in the pig industry in Yorkshire or Humberside, your help is requested. Please read on...

There is evidence that a growing number of people are keeping pigs either as pets or as a food-producing hobby. And the pig industry’s fear is a significant proportion of these new pig-keepers may, in all innocence, be breaking the law by failing to register their pigs.

If this is the case, the outcome could be calamitous during the next outbreak of foot and mouth or classical swine fever, as it will be next to impossible to trace, check and clear these animals.

As a result of a suggestion by Rod Tuck, of Tuck Box — essentially that all these people have to buy feed through people like him and could be alerted to their responsibilities at the same time — the Yorkshire and Humberside Health project is to compile a database of relevant feed outlets in the region.

With the help of producers and others in the industry it will then make person-to-person contact with these companies and ask that all buyers of pig feed are given a copy of Defra’s “New Pig Keeper Guidance”.

At their next meeting Yorkshire and Humberside Health steering group members will consider whether this simple initiative could be refined to embrace a simple form which feed purchasers would complete and which could then be used to inform the relevant official databases.

The important point at this early stage is that Rod Tuck’s suggestion has sparked some action and this could, in the fullness of time, solve a nationwide problem.

Rod Tuck made his proposal after reading the article “Pet pigs are a backyard timebomb” in June Pig World.

In the article Marcus Bates said British Pig Association had recorded 300 new pig-keepers so far this year... “and that is only a small proportion because not everyone who buys a pig comes through our system.”

He stressed that these newcomers to pig-keeping needed to be validated. “At present we have no way of checking. We say to them, if you join us you will need to tell us your agricultural holding number and herdmark. But not all of them join us, so we don't know what happens to them.”

The problem raised by Marcus Bates is particularly relevant going forwards, as professional pig-keepers will be required to pay an annual livestock tax, as well as towards the cost of outbreaks of foot and mouth and classical swine fever.

As things stand at present, some owners of pet pigs simply do not know about the rules, says Rod Tuck. Some have asked him for a harness for a Great Dane or St Bernard. When he asks why they want it, they tell him it is to take their pig for a walk.

June 12 2009

Inspirational start to disease reduction in yorkshire

Big strides were taken yesterday to reduce pig producers’ costs of production, when the Yorkshire and Humberside Health steering group met at the Bishopton Veterinary Group complex at Ripon.

The meeting received a report containing numerous messages of support and advice from leading pig specialist vets, and from many producers in the region.

And it was given an inspirational briefing by David Neal on how the Thomas Dent units have successfully eradicated swine dysentery.

The subject of swine dysentery attracted considerable discussion at the meeting, with feedback from steering group members suggesting producers in the region are impatient for a concerted bid to eradicate it area by area.

Special attention will be given to this subject at the disease control meeting to be held at Malton on July 1, which many pig-keepers in the region have already confirmed they will be attending.

Yesterday’s steering group meeting also saw the prototype of David Thelwell's Is now the right time to depop? software, which is easy to use and will tell producers in seconds whether it is worth considering a depop.

But members were keen to stress that help with coordinated depops is only one small part of the services that will be offered to pig-keepers by Yorkshire and Humberside Health.

Considerable progress was made on the question of how to handle the minority of pig keepers who may not want to be involved with the drive to reduce some diseases and eliminate others.

In some cases it will be possible to persuade them — and Yorkshire Humberside Health may have more success at doing this than neighbours.

And in some cases they may change their minds anyway, as the project gains momentum and the benefits become clear. But in other instances "clusters" of producers will be able to work round problem areas, without compromising their own plans to improve health and reduce costs.

Other work now underway — under the pivotal leadership of vet Nigel Woolfenden and a team of pig specialist vets — includes a model survey which, in due course, will produce a map of the region where a number of key chronic diseases will be colour-coded as being present or not present.

If there are any areas where pig-keepers prefer not to be involved, these will be flagged as red, so others know the health status is unclear. The diseases being targeted are: swine dysentery, enzootic pneumonia, PRRS and mange.

Members of the steering group take some pride in being an action body rather than a talkshop (to such an extent that work on the project is well under way before the group has even chosen a name for itself).

There are myriad issues to address, such as the health status of weaners imported from elsewhere in the country, the need to ensure all hauliers properly clean and disinfect their lorries, and the need for better cleaning facilities at abattoirs.

This latter point was made with some vigour so it will be important to learn which abattoirs have unsatisfactory facilities.

Yorkshire and Humberside Health is funded by BPEX, and the Rural Development Programme for England (which is jointly funded by Defra and the European Union, and is managed by Yorkshire Forward in the Yorkshire and Humber region).

Funding covers what may be termed "headquarters services" for pig-keepers but cannot cover normal farm business costs — vaccines, depops and so on. Within these constraints, the challenge to pig-keepers is to lead the project into the areas they want it to cover, and to extract maximum value from it.

This will be achieved by small clusters of producers working together and making best use of "headquarters services" to mitigate chronic disease in Yorkshire, area by area until every piece in the jigsaw is covered.

• Many producers, vets and unit staff (please note, the participation of unit staff is very much welcomed) have already confirmed they will be attending the project's big meeting at Malton Rugby Club on July 1. If you have not responded yet, please complete the form at the top of this page. — D.S.

June 5 2009

Happy days are here again... let's not waste them

‘These are the good times... let’s not waste them.’ This is the message to all Yorkshire and Humberside pig-keepers from Yorkshire and Humberside Health, the BPEX-driven initiative to slash disease costs in the region.

And it’s why every pig-keeper in the region is urged to attend a pivotal pig health meeting on July 1, to help design Yorkshire and Humberside’s health control package.

Please don’t wait for an invitation in the post. This article is your invitation. Fill in the form on the NPA/Pig World News page to let the organisers know you will attend. Go on... do it now!

Despite last year’s 6.5 percent plunge in the European Union sow herd, continental pig production is not as low as expected, because of increased productivity. The current run of good prices in Britain is driven not by a shortage of importable pigmeat but by the weakness of sterling against the euro. And pessimists say a correction is inevitable, sooner or later.

So all pig keepers must stay tuned to the one immutable fact that dictates future profitability — slashing disease costs. BPEX and NPA chairman Stewart Houston is quite clear about this: indeed disease reduction is the lynchpin of his whole vision for the future of our industry.

‘We have to cut costs and increase productivity,’ he says. ‘We can do it, I’m sure about that. In fact we have to do it. We have been hugely successful at marching retailers towards British pigmeat — as a single example, the Co-op which is already committed to all-British fresh pork is now saying it will take Somerfield in the same direction.

‘We have created this market by promoting the quality of British pigmeat and now we must ensure we can supply the market going forward or it will all have been for nothing. If we make the Yorkshire and Humberside Health scheme a success and then roll it out across the rest of the country I can see us producing another 1.5 million pigs a year without putting another sow down.’

Pig-keepers, vets and relevant allied trades are urged to attend a meeting chaired by producer Richard Lister at Malton Rugby Club, 3pm-8pm, including a pie-and-pea supper.

The meeting will be in two parts. First, the organisers will report on what they have done so far, and what they hope to achieve going forward. Then, in an informal atmosphere, all attendees will be asked to put on their thinking caps and help design a disease control scheme that meets the approval of the majority of pig-keepers, and delivers cost savings of up to £8 a pig.

All producers whatever your scale of operation — and staff — vets — allied trades — are invited. Please complete the online form.

MAY 16 2009

Producer meeting, Wednesday July 1
Malton Rugby Club

Will all Yorkshire and Humberside pig producers, and their vets, please put this date in their diaries: July 1, 2009.

This is when Yorkshire and Humberside Health will hold its first meeting for stakeholders to determine how the regional disease mitigtaion programme should progress. There are plenty of taxing issues to resolve and producers' input is essential. The meeting will include informal break-out groups. It will be followed by a pie-and-pea supper.

If you wish to be added to the YAHH email list, please email Digby.

APRIL 19, 2009

Yorkshire producers make history as work
starts on health improvement scheme

Funding is now in place to build a healthier, more efficient and more internationally competitive Yorkshire and Humberside pig herd. The target is to give producers the tools to reduce production costs by up to £8 a pig.

“We can’t rely on the current favourable euro-sterling exchange rate for our future profitability,” said NPA and BPEX chairman Stewart Houston. “We have all got to work on our key performance indicators - pigs per sow per year, feed conversion and growth rate - and that is what improved health through the county will help deliver.”

There are two reasons why the English pig industry’s pig health improvement scheme is being rolled out in Yorkshire ahead of other regions.

Crucially, Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency, shares producers’ vision of what can be achieved to improve pig health and welfare. And equally important, Yorkshire pig-keepers have, in the words of one producer, demonstrated they are “up for tackling something really big” to improve health status.

The Yorkshire and Humberside project will take several years to complete. It is intended there will be a lasting legacy of information sharing and co-operation which will bring production benefits for generations of pig-keepers to come.

Leading figures in the industry have acknowledged that had the project been in place several years ago it might have been possible to reduce the impact of wasting disease in Yorkshire significantly, by pinpointing how the disease was entering the county and how and where it was spreading.

The majority of producers who have been briefed on the project have been wholly supportive. Others will have a chance to hear about the plans first hand at NPA’s northern region meeting at The Crown at Boroughbridge on Thursday April 30.

Bringing down disease pressure over a whole county presents considerable challenges, say consultants David Thelwall and Sam Hoste who are leading the project for BPEX.

“We need all the input from producers and vets that we can get. Everyone has his or her own view about what can be achieved and how best to achieve it, and the steering group needs to gather all that information.”

Because of its size and scale there are two phases to the project - Planning (this year) and Action (next year onwards). NPA has given its support, as has the British Pig Association.

The planning phase will cost around £300,000, which will come from Yorkshire Forward, as part of the current Rural Development Programme, and BPEX.

It will include the mapping of all pig units in Yorkshire and Humberside and an attempt to determine their health status. Identifying mainstream pig operations may be relatively straightforward. Locating and communicating with smaller scale pig-keepers poses a greater challenge but will be critical to the scheme’s success.

“If we are going to have a successful disease mitigation programme we are going to need to know where the pigs are, what chronic diseases they have got, the economic impact of reducing that disease and the best way to achieve it,” said David Thelwall.

Professor Stan Done, of the Veterinary Laboratories Agency at Thirsk, and veterinarian Nigel Woolfenden, of the Bishopton Veterinary Group, will be working on ways to quantify a herd’s disease status. This is a formidable task.

NPA and BPEX hope the Yorkshire and Humberside health improvement scheme will be a mechanism for winning a discount on Defra’s planned disease tax which is expected to cost a 250-sow producer around £1,500 a year from 2012.

“As producers start paying more attention to reducing endemic disease they will as a matter of course improve biosecurity throughout the region,” said Stewart Houston. “I will be using this to demonstrate how favourably the pig industry’s biosecurity compares with the biosecurity of other sectors.

“I will be vigourously pressing the case that those who sign up to the scheme should get the added benefit of a discount on their cost and responsibility levy.

Although Thelwall and Hoste will be addressing meetings in the region to explain the scheme in detail and to gather people‘s ideas and advice, producers can contribute at any point by offering their thoughts to steering group members, who include Richard Lister (chairman), Stewart Houston, David Neal, Phil Stephenson, Chris Barlow and Glenn Dams.

Although reducing disease pressure across a region is complicated - the pig vets are very clear about that - the concept of the scheme itself is simple.

“We accept that it will be impossible to persuade one hundred percent of pig owners to take part but our target will be create a growing area of minimal disease pressure which in turn will reduce the chances of reinfection after, say, a destock,” said David Thelwall.

Over the next few months the steering group will have several key issues to tackle - for instance how to accommodate the time-lag in breeding stock availability, and whether it will be possible for the scheme to have its own off-site finisher accommodation.

Many producers are keen to see some action as soon as possible and may wish the planning phase, which is from now to December, could be shorter, but mapping the Yorkshire pig herd and allocating a health status to each herd is going to be a time-consuming and complex task.

But it is, as the steering group has pointed out, a job worth carrying out in its own right. Even if the project went no further it will be immensely useful for the industry to know where all the pigs are and what disease challenge they present.

Another task will be to draw up a protocol for participating producers to sign up to. Only after talking to producers and the allied trades will it be possible to determine what the protocol should include and how demanding it should be.

The steering group is clear that it wants the scheme’s progress to be as transparent as possible. “We know what we are attempting to do is a really big deal,” said David Thelwall. “There are considerable hurdles to overcome but with the industry’s support we will overcome them.”

One of the aims of the project will be to leave a lasting legacy for the next generation of Yorkshire pig farmers.

“We want this regional grouping to continue after the funding ends,” said Sam Hoste.
“Having a local structure for sharing information - identifying what disease problems people have got and how they are going to deal with them - is going to leave us in a much better place than we are in now.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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