Farmscape for February 27, 2014

An analysis of the risks associated with PED to Quebec's pork industry shows the infection could cost up to 40 million dollars in the first year.
CDPQ, the Swine Development and Innovation Centre in Quebec, in partnership with the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Quebec's Swine Health Advisory Board and Quebec's Pork Producers Council has conducted a risk analysis of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in Quebec, developed strategies to minimize those risks and identify potential costs.
The analysis which was conducted in response to a new infection circulating through the U.S. identified nine key risks including trucks coming from and going to the U.S., importation of live animals from the U.S. or other provinces, cull animals going to the U.S. and the barns where that are assembled, importation of semen from the U.S. and feed.
Dr. Christian Klopfenstein, a veterinarian with a PhD in epidemiology responsible for swine health management with CDPQ, notes a simulation of the spread of PED in Quebec assumed a similar spread as that which occurred in the U.S.

Clip-Dr. Christian Klopfenstein-CDPQ:
Since the PED is mainly affecting piglets, there's a delay of 200 to 250 days between the first appearance of clinical signs in sow units and a real impact you can measure in terms of pigs that are being slaughtered so it clearly showed the impact it could have in Quebec if it came in in the same way it came into the U.S.
We are not 100 percent sure that we are going to be hit as hard or we hope that Canada is not going to be hit as hard as the U.S. has been.
When we made the simulation here we assumed we could be hit as hard as the U.S. has been and, if the hit was as hard as in the U.S. it could cost us 40 million dollars in the first year after the first case has been reported.

Dr. Klopfenstein notes the full 60 page report can be found at CDPQ.Ca.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council