Better Pork - October 2006
BEHIND THE LINES
Can anything be more contentious than the marketing of farm products, and the political and economic machinery that develops behind those sales? Likely not, and over the years this topic has arisen so many times across so many commodities, including pork, that the current discussion about bringing an end to Ontario Pork’s central desk selling system might not grab the attention it deserves, despite the pork board’s efforts to stimulate discussion among producers across the province.
This is a critical issue for the Ontario industry however and that is why we have devoted our cover story to it this month. (See, The Battle is Joined on Single Desk Selling in Ontario, by Don Stoneman, starting on Page 6. Consider the history of the Ontario Pork Producers’ Marketing Board, now most commonly known as Ontario Pork. The board was formed in the 1950s to market hogs. The goal in the 1950s was to protect the many producers across the province against the infinitely stronger power of relatively few buyers. (The board pork has since taken on other functions in representing its producers, and rightly so.) In the mid-1990s, the pork board responded to demands from both producers and government to change. Its slaughter hog auction was abandoned. Individual producers were allowed to enter into contracts with particular packers. The board retained authority to “sign off” on all contracts between producers and processors, although this power was controversial. Fast forward to 2006. There are far fewer pork producers now, and most of them are dealing with more pigs than producers in the ‘50s could ever have imagined. Can a producer from 50 years ago have imagined that weaner pigs would never see a finishing barn in Canada; that instead Ontario producers would actually contract with barn owners in the United States to finish pigs there? Not likely. So it’s no surprise that there are demands for changes to the system and those demands for change are a good thing. But along with fewer producers there are fewer packers to buy hogs, and one of those packers is the largest single producer of pigs in the province and therefore wields a lot of clout in the marketplace.. Does the single desk still serve a function here in Ontario? In the coming fall and winter Ontario producers will be pondering this question. In our health column on page 34, veterinarian Ernest Sanford looks at saliva as a source of fluid for a possible diagnostic test for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). And on page 38 Kate Procter reports on some positive initial results with a new Circo Virus vaccine have raised hopes that an end to the dramatic losses suffered by the Ontario industry might be in sight. Reduced numbers of hogs being marketed however suggest that PRRS and related diseases are still taking a toll on Ontario producers. The marketing board notes that during the short marketing week following Labour Day, 85,418 head were marketed, eight per cent fewer than the same four days in early September in the previous year.ROBERT IRWIN
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back THE LINTONS OF MITCHELL
How one producer coped with the ravages of PRRSDepopulation is not the only answer, say the experts. For this farm couple, facing heavy medication costs and mortality rates as high as 50 per cent, the answer was to clean out the barn and start over
by KATE PROCTER
In the past year, Ontario pork producers have watched disease ravage their animals and their bottom line. For each percentage increase in finishing barn mortality, you can subtract $1.19 per pig placed from whatever profit was expected, says Dr. Doug MacDougald.
Ways of dealing with this depend largely on individual operations, their pig flow and how close their neighbours are. But depopulation is not the only answer, say many swine veterinarians.
For Dave and Winnie Linton, who farm near Mitchell, it made sense to clean out their 1,200-head weaner barn completely and start fresh. The Lintons had been farrow-to-finish producers from 1976 to 1998, when they decided it was time either to go big or get out of the sow business. They went to a nursery-to-finish operation, buying in weaners and finishing them in several different barns.Things went well for the first few years, until Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS)hit their weaner supplier. At first, they did not notice a huge impact, but the disease began to take its toll on the animals they were purchasing. At that time, they decided to switch suppliers and began taking piglets that were 18-21 days old from their daughter-in-law’s sow operation, which was PRRS-negative.
Dave explains that they did not clean out the barn, but decided just to see how the piglets did. The first batch performed well and was not affected by the disease, but subsequent batches of piglets seemed to be affected more and more. Their drug costs increased and they went through seasonally difficult periods.Then, in the fall of 2005, “all hell broke lose”, say both Dave and Winnie. While they didn’t know it at the time, porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) had reared its ugly head, driving mortality rates up to 50 per cent.
“You could just about set your watch by it,” says Dave. When the piglets hit five weeks of age, their feed consumption would drop, they started to huddle and look hairy and then, just before they died, they would start panting. The Lintons could walk into the barn and point to the pigs that were going to die that day, the next day and the day after that.
In 2002, a year in which they finished 2,300 pigs, they spent $2,000 on medications for the entire year. In 2003, that spending increased to $4,500. In 2004, it was $7,700, in 2005 $12,000 and from October 2005 to March 2006, they spent $9,000 on injectables and water medications. None of these figures include medications that were administered in the feed.
In spite of all the vaccinations and medications, nothing was really helping their animals. From October to March, they started vaccinating against mycoplasma, but their average mortality rate in the nursery was 30 per cent. The pigs that survived generally went on to perform normally in the finishing barn, says Dave, but the damage had already been done.
Worst batch ever
In February, they tried injecting their pigs with Suvaxyn, a product made by Wyeth Animal Health and advertised to be effective at combating mycoplasma. That, says Winnie, was their worst batch ever with mortality rates hitting 50 per cent. When a flyer for the product arrived in the mail, they called to let the company know what had happened.
Within 24 hours, Dr. Ed Doornenbal, technical services veterinarian for Wyeth, called them back and immediately ordered post mortem examinations on their animals. With over 20 years of experience in clinical practice, Doornenbal says sometimes an outside opinion can be valuable in cases like these. Diseases can be complicated and when people are too close to the situation, it can make the real cause difficult to diagnose.
In the Lintons’ case, it turned out that they were vaccinating for something that wasn’t really causing their problem. Through diagnostic testing, they found that the animals were negative for influenza and mycoplasma, but positive for both circovirus and PRRS.
Doornenbal says Wyeth did pay for some testing on the Linton’s animals. “It is in our interest to pay for diagnostics, because then we get results back and can see how our product is working.”After reviewing the post mortem results with Doornenbal and considering the history of the operation, the Lintons’ veterinarians, Dr. Glen Armstrong, recommended they clean the barn out and start over.
“The best feeling I had was the morning we woke up and had decided to empty the barn. The psychological torment was worse than anything,” says Dave. Everything they tried would seem to work for a short time, and then things would go down hill again. The decision to take different action and formulate a plan gave the Lintons hope and something to focus on. “It was the most discouraging thing we’ve ever gone through,” adds Dave.
They had previously been taking half the production from their daughter-in-law’s sow herd, alternating every other week with another producer. They were able to arrange that he would take all of the weaned pigs for the length of time it took them to clean out their barn, and then they would take all the pigs for the same time. This ensured that neither operation lost any production in down time.
As each room emptied, they washed with cold water and disinfected with Virkon. Once the barn was completely empty, they emptied the pits, then washed everything with hot water and disinfected with Virkon again. The barn sat empty for a week before they began to fill it again. They did not wash out the pits.
As the Lintons approached the first five-week milestone for these pigs in the clean barn, their animals are looking good and eating well. “You can tell they’re different,” says Dave. They have cut out all medications except a small amount in the starter ration. “Not vaccinating for PRRS saves us 90 cents per pig,” says Winnie.
There is no guarantee that PCV2 will not cause problems again, given their location. Many of their neighbours have pigs and lots of them have had problems. One claims disease has cost him half a million dollars in the past year.But the Lintons agree that if they were in a similar situation again, the decision to clean out would not be such a major one. In fact, they are considering the option of completely cleaning out their barn at regular intervals to break any diseases that might get into the barn before they can cause major problems.
No need for depopulation
While the Lintons were able to empty and clean out their barn without losing any production, many operations are not so lucky. Cleaning out a farrow-to-finish operation and starting over requires a huge investment in time and money and, by its very nature, means big production losses.
Dr. Doug MacDougald, a swine practitioner from Stratford, says that depopulation is not the only answer. There are protocols used that have been effective at eliminating both PRRS and mycoplasma from herds without taking the radical step of depopulating. The primary diseases that are prevalent in Ontario now do not generally require depopulation of the sow herd, says MacDougald.
He has looked at costs associated with different diseases in his own practice. In one system, they started without PRRS or circovirus in the barn. Feed conversion was 2.59, average daily gain (ADG) was 907 grams, mortality was 2.6 per cent, culls were 1.8 per cent and light pigs were 3.8 per cent. The net opportunity cost per pig was -$1.35.
The herd broke with PRRS, which had a greater effect as time went on. By the third turn with PRRS in the barn, feed conversion had risen to 2.65, ADG to 901, mortality went to 4.0 per cent, condemned and culls had risen to 2.6 per cent and light pigs had risen to 3.7 per cent, with a net opportunity cost per pig of -$3.67. When the barn broke with PCV2, feed conversion jumped to 2.80, ADG dropped to 829, mortality went to 6.9 per cent, condemned and culls rose to 3.6 per cent and light pigs were at 3.4 per cent, with net opportunity cost per pig of -$9.41.
MacDougald has studied the effect of disease, both in Ontario and in areas that have been troubled by postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS), for several years. According to the Chamber of Agriculture in Brittany, pork producers in that region of France have seen average mortality rates in the finishing barn go from 3.3 per cent in 1994 to a high of 5.6 per cent between 1999 and 2000. Nursery mortality rates did not rise as dramatically, but still were up almost one percent.
MacDougald is still calculating the damage amongst his own clients, whose finishing mortality on average has risen from 3.6 per cent to 6.8 per cent between the first quarter of 2005 and the last.
While it is relatively easy to track the extra costs from increased medications and labour, disease costs producers a lot of money in mortalities, higher culling rates and poor performance. Dave Linton says they were lucky that their mortality was mostly in the nursery before they had a lot of feed invested in the pigs.
When pigs die in the last stages in the finishing barn, there is only about $25 worth of feed left to be invested, says MacDougald. Most costs associated with raising the pigs to market weight have already been incurred, so mortalities at this stage cost a lot more than at a younger age.
Since the beginning of March, market hog supplies have been between six and seven per cent lower than the same period in 2005, with some of the larger decreases coming in May, reports Patrick O’Neil, sales team manager with Ontario Pork. “Gauging how much of the decrease is due to disease is difficult,” says O’Neil. “There are other factors as well, including increase in weaner pig exports in January and lower conception rates last summer during the extreme heat.”
Pigs that do not die but are culled due to disease are also costly. MacDougald has calculated that, at current market conditions, culls cost between 75 cents and $1 per pig for every percentage increase in the cull rate, plus the intervention costs.
Choosing an eradication strategy
While every situation is different, MacDougald does not generally recommend depopulation as a PCV2 strategy. This is largely because there are so many unknowns associated with the disease and because the chances of getting it back into the barn are very high. A lot depends on who the neighbours are.
Instead, he talks about managing for the other diseases that seem to be required for PCV2 to cause problems, especially PRRS and mycoplasma. If producers can get rid of PRRS and mycoplasma without depopulating, PCV2 often becomes less of a problem. While new vaccines are becoming available, it is too early to tell how effective they will be against PCV2, says MacDougald.
An eradication strategy that involves making a break in the production cycle has been proven effective at getting mycoplasma and PRRS out of pig barns. Animals must be brought to the same level of immunity and not be shedding the virus.
Most strategies of this nature require that no gilt replacements be brought into the barn for about six months, which can stretch resources. If possible, replacement gilts should be bred at an isolated, off-site location and be brought on stream as needed. This helps maintain breeding targets, parity structure and production levels in the barn.
Planning begins months in advance and it is best to attempt an eradication in the summer, when disease transmission does not happen as easily. A “day 0” is selected, at which time there must be no gilts less than 10 months of age.
All piglets less than nine days of age are removed from the farm and freezers, fridges and other areas are cleaned and wiped with a sterilizing agent such as Ascend. This can be easily achieved by stopping breeding for several weeks four months before Day 0.
All the pigs in the barn are vaccinated one week before Day 0 and feed is medicated for about two weeks. While the sow barn is not emptied out, nursery and finishing barns should be. This requires finding alternative housing for one complete turn of pigs, as well as time for the barn to sit empty, which can be difficult and costly. Extra labour is involved, as well as additional trucking costs, depending on the location of alternative housing.
In spite of such extra costs, the main advantage of doing an eradication of this type is financial. Fewer replacement gilts are required than if a full depopulation and repopulation is conducted. The replacement rate is similar to what it would be in a normal pig flow and the animals do not have to be sacrificed at an extremely young age. Down-time costs are avoided in the sow herd and the age of the herd is not altered as dramatically as in a depopulation.
“I don’t think there is a disease that we haven’t eradicated on farm,” says Dr. Tim Blackwell, a veterinarian with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. But methods of getting rid of disease vary from producer to producer, pig flow to pig flow and vet to vet, he adds.
When determining what strategy to try, producers must look at what the disease is costing them and what it will cost to get rid of it. He recommends sitting down with the herd veterinarian and taking a hard look at both pig flow and cash flow.
Location is also a big piece of the puzzle. If your barn is located within a kilometre or two of another barn, that is positive for PRRS or mycoplasma and you might get five or 10 years free of disease or you might get five or 10 months, says Blackwell.BP
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back Be proud of the Canadian Brand
The strength of the Canadian Brand will be enhanced if we appreciate the challenges that lie along the value chain and help each other rather than point fingers
by RICHARD SMELSKI
Canadian pork producers are dependent on a very competitive global export market and Canada is basically one of five export countries, each seeking to export into seven major importing countries. So what differentiates a container of pork from Canada versus one from the other countries?
Does the Canadian branding help a pork producer in Kinkora, Ontario, versus a producer in Sao Paulo, Brazil? If the Canadian brand is helpful, what does it mean and how can we enhance it so that what we sell isn’t just another piece of meat?
Canadian exporters say our pork is held in high regard in the export business. What does this regard mean and can we capture more value for this from the chain? Is it the Canadian imprimatur that holds the value or is it the pork products themselves? What would one contaminated container of pork do to years of relationship and image building by the exporting companies?
Branding requires training. A company or supplier does not own a brand -- the customers do. Loblaws, Westons, and Maple Leaf carry their own brand image.
Branding applies to all sizes of operation from Maple Leaf in the millions of dollars to a little butcher shop in Tavistock, Ontario. One error in the organization can destroy the brand or you can continue to grow it without faltering, as Tim Hortons did. The difference is that it takes a team to grow the brand, but one individual to destroy it. It takes years to build a brand, but it can be destroyed in days.
We learned how one cow in Alberta could destroy an economy, but we also learned the importance of good teamwork in lessening the pain and recapturing as much value as possible. We also learned how important it was to be open, honest and communicative. And when a prominent leader said we should “shoot, shovel and shut up,” it sent a wave of distrust through the customer base.
Every person working in the chain carries a much more important role in the brand image than one would think. You do not want to be the one in the derogatory position associated with inhumane treatment, environmental error, a food safety issue or personnel abuse. We have an industry at stake.
Complain as we may about our government services, producer associations or scientific personnel, they are very important segments in establishing a good or bad brand image. These people are often in the front line selling our brand image and eventually the chain value -- the Canadian Brand.
There are many departments of the bureaucracy working very diligently in areas unbeknownst to us, but which are crucial in establishing trust in our industry. For example, Dr. Austin Murray, a researcher in Lacombe, Alta., worked his entire career at Agriculture Canada studying and defining pork quality. He is a world leader, but he remains unknown to most pork producers who depend on the information he publishes. However, equally important is the herd person who is injecting a treatment on a market pig because the branding image is on the line in each case.
What is the glue that holds together the value image from the Canadian farm to a foreign fork? Producers can follow the highest standards and packers can exceed international regulations. Yet if the temperature is not maintained in the container of pork by a ship’s crew, we all have a problem.
The strength in the glue is proportional to the communication and training that takes place throughout the chain. How you feed your pigs may determine if that container of pork will be accepted at the port of entry. The strength of the Canadian Brand will be enhanced if we appreciate the challenges that lie along the value chain and help each other rather than point fingers.
We are blessed with the Canadian values in our product. To enhance these values, we not only need to continue our diligence but appreciate the diligence that others are incorporating into the value. So rather than “shoot, shovel and shut up,” we should be “transparent, trusting and talkative.”
Let us be proud to brand the Canadian Image on everything we produce, especially pork.BPRichard Smelski is general manager of Ontario Swine Improvement Inc. and a former Ontario government swine specialist.
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