Farmscape for June 8, 2026

The Director of Swine Health with the National Pork Producers Council says testing of swine farms later this month near the Iowa farm identified as infected with pseudorabies in April could clear the way for the restoration of the United States' pseudorabies-free status.
In April the USDA confirmed pseudorabies in a small commercial swine herd in Iowa and an outdoor backyard herd in Texas, the Iowa outbreak being the first known case in commercial swine since the disease was declared eradicated from commercial production in 2004.
Dr. Anna Forseth, the Director of Animal Health with the National Pork Producers Council, on hand last week for World Pork Expo, says pseudorabies and various other diseases remain in feral swine in the U.S. and, while pseudorabies has occasionally appeared in backyard herds, the identification of the infection in a commercial setting affects the movement of some products to certain destinations.

Quote-Dr. Anna Forseth-National Pork Producers Council:
A lot of credit to the Iowa State Veterinarians Office on their action to date.
They worked really quickly to get their arms around the situation, to understand the scope of the situation.
As of now the region, within the five-mile radius around the index premises in Iowa, the herds have been identified and they were all tested within eight days of the confirmation and all of those samples tested negative.
So, they shrink that down to a two-mile radius and they wait 30 days after the index site was cleaned and disinfected.
So, the sites located within a two-mile radius are eligible for a second round of testing starting on June 12th.
After those herds are tested a second time, providing  there are no positive samples, then the USDA can report to the World Organization for Animal Health again that we are free of pseudorabies in our commercial production.

Dr. Forseth says right now officials are waiting for June 12th.
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Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers