He told other swine vets at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (BIVI) Swine Health Seminar in Denver last week about a study they did on the economic costs of different combinations of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, PRRS, and swine influenza virus (SIV). “We found that when you had a combination of PRRS and Mycoplasma, PRRS and SIV, that the production costs in the form of average daily gain, culls and mortality, was a lot higher than either antigen alone,” he said.

As a result, Dr. Painter said that preventative measures such as vaccinations for those pathogens proved to be well worth the investment. “The result that you get from Mycoplasma negative pigs is excellent return,” he said. “Also, it’s clear that if you vaccinate a pig three weeks before they’re exposed to the PRRS virus, that the cost of the mortality and culls is substantially less.”

Listen to my interview with Dr. Painter here: Dr. Tom Painter with Cargill Pork

BIVI Summit at Mile High 2012 photo album

That expansion has brought with it both opportunities and challenges for producers, according to Iowa State University Professor of Animal Science Dr. John Patience, who spoke to swine veterinarians last week at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (BIVI) Swine Health Seminar in Denver. “Corn and soybean meal are relatively uniform ingredients. Now that we’ve moved to using products like wheat middlings, bakery by-products, and distillers grains, those are ingredients that are quite variable in their nutrient composition. So, we have to do a lot more quality control, for example,” he explained. “We also have to make sure when we use these ingredients that they fit into our feed manufacturing system since some of them are a lot less dense, bulk-wise.”

Dr. Patience says we are seeing diets now with 20% or less corn in them. “Right now the Europeans have a lot more experience with using these diverse kinds of diets than we do, but we’re catching up,” he said, adding that the U.S. pork industry is extremely innovative and responsive to new information “and that has really shown itself remarkably well in the last five years.”

Listen to my interview with Dr. Patience here: ISU Animal Scientist Dr. John Patience

BIVI Summit at Mile High 2012 photo album

At the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (BIVI) Swine Health Seminar in Denver, Dr. Steve Pollmann, President of Western Operations for Murphy-Brown, LLC shared some of his thoughts on dealing with high feed costs in commercial pig production. “We’re the live production part of Smithfield Foods,” he said. “We have about 850,000 sows located in 12 different states and we produce about 17 million pigs.

That’s a lot of pigs to feed, so when feed costs go up, the cost of production can increase dramatically. “We all know that feed is the biggest single cost of production,” Steve said. “A 25 cent change in corn price per bushel, with that comes a $20 change in soybean price, all of the sudden you’ve got a $1.60 a hundredweight cost of production (increase).” He says the higher feed costs in the last five years or so have meant feed as a percentage of total production costs has risen from 60% to 70%.

Like all pork producers, Murphy-Brown has had to adjust to the higher feed costs by becoming more efficient. “When things get that kind of difficult, you’ve got to get better and if you don’t, you die,” he said.

Listen to my interview with Dr. Pollmann here: Dr. Steve Pollman, Murphy-Brown

BIVI Summit at Mile High 2012 photo album

Dr. Hurt spoke to swine veterinarians on the topic of “Global Feed Economics in a Biofuel World” during the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (BIVI) Swine Health Seminar in Denver on Friday.

“This is an amazing difference from just five years ago,” Dr. Hurt said about the hog industry’s adjustment to higher corn prices. “The hog industry was largely set up with $2-2.50 corn going into 2006. After that we saw major increases in those corn prices.”

Hog producers initially absorbed those higher costs by reducing margins, which meant big losses and ultimately resulted in reduced supplies. “You reduce the supply enough, you bring those hog prices up. That’s where we are today. Hog producers can pay $6-7 for corn with the prices they’re getting for hogs,” he said. “That up to $7 is higher than ethanol plants can pay for corn and still cover all their costs.”

Dr. Hurt talked about the demand drivers for both corn and soybeans that are causing increased acreage globally and how he expects feed prices to moderate in the next several years. “That brings us back to more like in the $5-5.50 corn range.”

Listen to my interview with Dr. Hurt here: Dr. Chris Hurt

BIVI Summit at Mile High 2012 photo album

The first part of the seminar is focused on higher feed costs and right now attendees are hearing about “Global Feed Economics in a Biofuel World” from Dr. Chris Hurt, Purdue University Professor of Agricultural Economics. After Dr. Hurt, Dr. Steve Pollmann of Murphy-Brown will talk about how to deal with the high cost of feed in commercial pig production.

Dr. John Patience, Iowa State University Professor of Animal Science, will discuss the challenges and opportunities of expanding the base of dietary ingredients for swine. Finally, Dr. Tom Painter, Cargill Pork Director Veterinary Health Services, will answer the question, What does it cost to have multiple pathogens in your flow?

Topping off the seminar will be an evening of dinner and entertainment at Sports Authority Field at Mile High.

I’ll be interviewing all the presenters about what they had to say and bringing you that information over the next few days. Meanwhile, the BIVI Summit at Mile High 2012 photo album is already live for your viewing pleasure.

Our good friend is being celebrated today for 20 years of service to America’s pork industry. As Mike notes, Cindy “helped guide the pork industry through the price collapse in 1998 and through the H1N1 disaster in 2009. She’s also helped the industry avert a few thousand other crises — large and small — in between and since. And crisis management is just a small part of her job description. We all can be thankful she has chosen to dedicate these past 20 years to serving pork producers.”

I am thankful to have known Cindy for all those 20 years and that she is one of the exclusive club of three Cindy-Cyndi’s – which includes us and Cyndi Young of Brownfield Network. We’re kind of a big deal.

When I told her I wanted a photo to do a post about her anniversary at NPB, she said nay, nay. Of course, we have dozens of photos of her over the years – always lovely. And we have to say yeah, yeah.

Love you muchess, Duchess!

Last time, it was Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) who had negative comments about USDA’s controversial Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard’s Administration (GIPSA) proposal. This time, it’s Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO), chairman of the House Small Business Committee’s Agriculture, Energy and Trade Subcommittee. Earlier this month, Tipton held a subcommittee hearing entitled “How USDA’s Proposed GIPSA Rule Hurts America’s Small Businesses.”

Tipton says if the “Job-Crushing GIPSA Proposed Regulation” is adopted it “has the potential to reduce gross domestic product by over $1.5 billion and cost the U.S. economy nearly 23,000 jobs.” He’s most concerned that USDA “fully comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) and ensure that USDA understands the private-sector costs of the regulations it is imposing on all sectors within the livestock industry.”

One of the witnesses at the July 7 hearing was USDA Undersecretary Edward Avalos, who said the agency is “fairly close” to completing the final economic analysis on the proposed rule, but that it was “too early in the process” yet to answer any specific questions related to economic impact.

Robbie LeValley of LeValley Ranch in Hotchkiss, Colorado was also a witness at the hearing. “The proposed GIPSA rule will destroy our small business model, force us to lay off our employees, cripple our ability to market our cattle way we want to and limit consumer choice,” she said.

Other witnesses with similar messages included Gary Malenke of Sioux-Preme Pork Products and Joel Brandenberge, President of the National Turkey Federation.

You can watch the whole hearing here:

The National Cattlemens Beef Association (NCBA) and the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), both opposed to the proposed rule, are pleased that the appropriations bill could put it on hold. “The National Pork Producers Council is grateful that the House is requiring USDA to take a time out on the GIPSA rule, which as proposed is bad for farmers and ranchers, bad for consumers and bad for rural America,” said NPPC president Doug Wolf of Wisconsin, who adds that the rule would cost the pork supply chain about $333 million a year.

NCBA past president Steve Foglesong of Illinois says their beef cattle producer members are thrilled with the vote in the House. “When we had our annual meeting back in February, the priority coming out was this GIPSA rule,” Steve said. “It was one thing our members said absolutely cannot happen.”

Other organizations pleased with the action include the National Turkey Federation, National Chicken Council and American Meat Institute. The appropriations measure still must go through the Senate and is likely to change substantially.

Listen to comments from Doug and Steve here: NPPC and NCBA on GIPSA Funding

Controlling enteric diseases caused by ileitis and Salmonella can help both keep food safe and pork producer profits growing. “Enteric diseases are sometimes below the threshold of detection,” said Kent Schwartz, DVM with Iowa State University. “Feed is the largest input into the cost of production and anything that comprises intestinal function has a propensity to cost money and among many other factors are infectious diseases.”

Dr. Schwartz recommends that producers keep good records on animals and determine whether they are achieving their potential. “Lawsonia and Salmonella are very common infections,” he said. “These agents can cause disease that are not necessarily visual but can impact feed to gain and we do have for those two agents very effective vaccines that can take them out of the equation.”

Listen to or download an interview with Dr. Schwartz here: Dr. Kent Schwartz

Since control of Salmonella is a food safety concern, BIVI senior veterinarian John Kolb says it is is something producers can and should address. “Salmonella’s always going to be there,” he said. “One more thing that we can do to reduce the amount of Salmonella in the pig itself, is use vaccination.”

Dr. Kolb recommends producers get their vet involved and determine when exposure to Salmonella starts and make sure the vaccine gets in ahead of it.

Listen to or download an interview with Dr. Kolb here: John Kolb with BIVI

2011 World Pork Expo Photo Album

There are bacon celebrations scattered all over the United States.  In 2008 Andre Vonbaconvitch (not kidding – that’s his real bacon loving pseudonym) and two other friends came up with the idea to bring Baconfest to Chicago.  This year the Illinois Pork Producers Association (IPPA) became the presenting sponsor of Baconfest Chicago. What a partnership – the people that are responsible for makin’ bacon presenting the festival that honors the  absolutely deliciously sexy food that so many people adore.  How much fun is that?

But here’s the serious stuff… Not only were the volunteers from IPPA able to interact and continue to tell the message of the Illinois pork farmer with the 2,000 attendees of this years Baconfest – they were able to raise more than $1,600 in donations alone from their highly popular Peace. Love. Bacon. t-shirts for the Pork Power program.  Attendees were asked to bring a food item to donate for the Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD) and IPPA would match the donation pound for pound with pork.  The GCFD food drive collected 1,653 lbs of food.  Illinois Pork Producers will be donating nearly 2,500 lbs of pork to the Greater Chicago Food Depository (1,653 pounds of pork – matching the food collected PLUS 850 pounds of pork that they will purchase with the $1,622 raised from the t-shirt donations).

All in all a pretty amazing feat from some of the nations best pork producers.  One other “fun” thing from the weekend – my friend Tim, Director of Public Relations with Illinois Pork Producers, recites this years winning Ode to Bacon written by Joel Chmara called “Johnny Baconseed:  A Poem For The Hopeless Romantics”.

So many great things came from this partnership – Afterall.. Everything is better with bacon.

This I learned more about from Tim Bettington, BIVI’s Executive Director of the Swine Division who told me that as an animal health company, PRDC is a critical component of their business because it is one the biggest challenges they face in the swine industry. That is what drove them to create their 3FLEX product, which addresses three of the four key critical pathogens that comprise PRDC (Porcine Respiratory Disease Complex): circa virus, mycoplasma, PRRS and influenza. 3FLEX consists of three vaccines: Ingelvac CircoFLEX®, Ingelvac MycoFLEX® and Ingelvac® PRRS MLV in one 2 mL shot.

Bettington said at this time 3FLEX doesn’t address the flu, but that is an area of opportunity that they are working on.

The FLEX concept has dual meaning for the industry. The speakers all noted that oftentimes when a pig contracts one disease, it becomes more susceptible to others. This vaccine helps to address that issue. Second, each of the veterinarians mentioned that they have used the 3FLEX product in different ways with success so it is important to work with your local veterinarian on the best ways and the best times to integrate this new product into your sow management strategies.

To learn more about the FLEX concept, listen to my full interview Tim Bettington here: Tim Bettington Discusses 3FLEX

Check out the 2011 BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album.

Randy Jones is located in Eastern North Carolina and practices in a very pig dense area and PRRS is the number one disease that he deals with. He said it is a very frustrating disease to deal with from a control perspective. I asked him about the cycle of PRRS and he said that his area had been dealing with it, then circa virus came along and overwhelmed PRRS and to some extent it was forgotten about. Then once a vaccine became available for circa virus and they were so effective in protecting the pig that now they’re back fighting the same diseases again such as PRRS.

Jones also noted that because viruses change and mutate they are hard to control so diagnostics is key. “The core of our program is diagnostics. You’ve got to do diagnostics to know what you’ve got, when you’ve got it. Because the timing makes all the difference in the in world in what type of control program you put in place.”

You can learn more about PRRS diagnostics in my full interview with Randy Jones here: Randy Jones Discusses The Role of Diagnostics in PRRS

Mike Eisenmenger practices in St. Peter, Minnesota but travels throughout the upper Midwest and like Jones, PRRS is the most prevalent disease he sees. He notes its a very smart virus and it stays one step ahead of the industry’s control programs. However, he believes that in general, they have been able to develop methods to manage sow farms where they’ve been able to consistently make negative pigs even though the sow farm would be considered positive for the virus.

Also, like Jones, Eisenmenger promotes consistent diagnostics strategies and he stresses that pigs need to be tested frequently, for example at least one a month. If the pigs are negative, then he suggests vaccinating them shortly after weaning them with the PRRS virus. Then after they are sent off to go live in the “real world” tissue samples can be done to test to see if they continue to be PRRS negative. Should a finishing site become infected with PRRS, Eisenmenger said there are strategies, such as antibiotics, that can be taken, to mitigate the problem. If not treated, pigs will become much more susceptible to other bacterial diseases.

You can learn more about PRRS diagnostics, and control and mitigation strategies in my full interview with Mike Eisenmenger here: Mike Eisenmenger Discusses All Things PRRS

Check out the 2011 BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album.

What happens when a pig gets a flu? Gillespie explained that the flu virus is very similar to what happens in people. In 1918 the classic H1N1 flu strain caused a lot of death in humans. It was thought for many, many years that the virus jumped from pigs to humans and infected them at that time. What we know today is that humans, more than not, affect the hog units. So we have biosecurity programs in place. “That’s been the biggest change in the past three years in how we’re looking at influenza,” said Gillespie.

Flu symptoms in pigs are similar to those in humans but don’t usually last more than 3 or 4 days. I asked Gillespie how to diagnose if your pig has the flu. He said that you can do nasal swabs. Once you’ve determined that the flu is in fact what your pig is suffering from, then you treat the secondary bacterial infections. From there, you go into a preventative type program where you determine if there are any commercial products available to help. He noted that these are now becoming multi-strain so they provide better cross protection.

You can learn more about what to do if your pig gets the flu in my full interview with Tom here: Tom Gillespie Discusses Treatment For The Flu

Check out the 2011 BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album.

There are many strains of mycoplasma and four pathogenic strains believed to cause the most disease. She noted that a pig can be positive for any one of these and not have problems or you can be positive and have a lot of problems. Strait explained that various things can cause a tipping point, for example co-infections. So if you have a pig with PRRS and mycoplasma, they both will be worse.

Strait said it can be really hard early on to detect mycoplasma especially hyopneumoniaes. Some percentage of pigs are infected from sow to piglet transmission and then those piglets go after weaning and then mix with all the other piglets and then become a source of infection for everybody else. In most cases, if you don’t have a lot of pigs infected early on then it takes longer to circulate through the system and then most likely you don’t see problems quite as severely but if you have a lot of pigs infected early on, then you might have a lot of problems.

I asked Strait what the best way was to test your pigs for mycoplasma. She said serology is the best way to test the hyopneumoniaes but its really going to tell you after the fact.

“So really the only thing you can do is PCR and most people will test for PCR in nasal swabs because that’s an accessible sample to collect but multiple studies have shown its not very sensitive because it doesn’t colonize in the nose, it colonizes lower down in the trachea and lower airways,” said Strait. “So ideally you’d get samples from the large airway. So we discussed the potential of doing a trachea bronchial swab would be very reflective and very reflective of the status of the individual pig.”

There are several ways to treat your pigs once they have a mycoplasma as well as ways to manage your sow to lesson problems that include antibiotics and vaccines. In addition, Strait said she and her team are available to assist if major mycoplasma problems arise in your sow herd.

You can learn more about mycoplasma in my full interview with Erin: Erin Strait: Emerging Mycoplasma Diagnostics

Check out the 2011 BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album.

BIVI brought in some native Indian dancers that just lit up the stage. The Yellow Bird Indian Dancers have been wowing audiences throughout the country for 25 years and they wowed the BIVI’s guests and employees as well. In this video Doreen Duncan and her husband Ken Duncan perform the Apache Rainbow Dance. Following this dance, several of their sons including Alan, Sky, Kevin and Tony, perform variations of the Hoop Dance. Each one of the sons has won national competitions.

You can learn more about the Yellow Bird Indian Dancers on their website. And special thanks for BIVI for bringing us such an amazing opportunity to experience part of the local culture first hand.

Check out the 2011 BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album.

Giordano said there are four markets that are commonly referred to as emerging markets and they are known as the BRIC markets: Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Giordano said that while Brazil is a competitor, the U.S. is well-stacked to compete, in part because U.S. pork producers offer the lowest-cost, safest pork in the world. He also noted that as you look at the growing middle class in the world, approximately 9 billion people by 2045, most of the economic growth will be outside the United States, and people will be switching to meat-based diets.

“No question Brazil will continue to be a competitor,” said Giordano. “You can look at the U.S. and Brazil as really being the supermarkets to the world.”

There will be significant growth in Russia in large part due to the down payment the U.S. received in 2004 on Russia’s succession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Giordano said there will be continued opportunity but not in the same league as China.

While India has a history of vegetarianism in the country, the younger generation is becoming more open to eating meat. India is expected to surpass China as most populated country in the world. Giordano said the U.S. can’t currently ship to India but NPPC is working on overcoming these barriers and opening the market.

Giordano said of the BRIC markets, there is no question that the greatest opportunity is in China. The cost of production is double ours and pork very important part of their diet. In fact, China is the biggest pork consuming market in the world but imports only 2 percent of their meat. “If we got just one quarter of one percent of additional Chinese consumption it would generate over 3,300 direct new jobs in the pork industry, create exports of over $250 million and add over $3 to the value of each live hog market in the US,” said Giordano.

Other areas of growth for the pork industry include those countries included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) including Vietnam.

You can learn more about emerging markets for pork as well as the role NPPC has played in the Mexican trucking dispute that drastically reduced US imports to Mexico in my full interview with Nick here. Nick Giordano Discusses Emerging Markets for Pork Industry

Check out the 2011 BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album.

“The industry continues to consolidate. So with all the different issues related with costs and profitability, the environment, and welfare, we’re seeing it’s getting focused in fewer and fewer hands,” said Holck. “So one of the big issues we deal with is that the customer base actually shrinks while the pig base is actually growing. So another challenge that is related to one of our big issues is profitability. They’re looking at us to give them good answers with regard to animal health.”

Holck said that BI wants to be available for all its customers so as they grow, they want to be able to provide more technical services.  That means they are making sure they’re providing the services most valuable to them while still being available to their entire customer base.

To meet these goals, they have tremendously grown their team – more than triple in nearly 4 years. This is on the technical side of the business, so Holck said its provided a lot of opportunity to focus on the disease side like PRRS but also in supporting new products like their FLEX line that includes CircoFLEX®, Ingelvac MycoFLEX® and Ingelvac® PRRS MLV.

In addition, it has made his team more responsive and able to do more long-term projects. They do a lot of field trials and customer projects such as diagnostic investigations with their customers in a timely manner that helps them make good decisions. The results have not only been closer working relationship with these customers but also more information for the industry as whole.

The 2011 Swine Health Seminar is not the only time BI hosts events of this type. Holck said they often hosts seminars in conjunction with major meetings and they are continuously striving to bring to market products and information that will benefit the industry.

You can learn more about BI on their website and also in my full interview with Tyler here. Tyler Holck Discusses Trends in Swine Industry

Check out the 2011 BIVI Swine Health Seminar Photo Album.

NPPC comments say the USDA agency “lacked authority or exceeded it on certain provisions of a proposed rule on buying and selling hogs, failed to support the need for the regulation with evidence of problems in the pork industry and didn’t consider its own studies showing that restricting contracts could harm the industry.” An economic impact study by Informa Economics estimates that the cost to the pork industry alone would amount to $333 million per year, after an initial $69 million expense.

The pork producers call the regulation a “bureaucratic overreach” and point out that GIPSA lacks the authority to declare that no showing of injury to competition is necessary to establish a violation of the Packers and Stockyards Act. NPPC asked that GIPSA withdraw the portions of the proposed rule that will have an immediate and detrimental impact on the pork industry. It also requested a thorough analysis of the affect on the pork producers of any new regulation.

“As proposed, the GIPSA rule is bad for farmers and ranchers, bad for consumers and bad for rural America,” said NPPC President Sam Carney, a pork producer from Adair, Iowa. “We’d like the agency to rewrite the rule, sticking to the mandates Congress gave it in the 2008 Farm Bill.”

In addition to the economic impact, the study found that a majority of industry participants think the rule language is “vague and poorly-defined”; that companies affected by the rule are uncertain about how it will be interpreted and enforced, and that “the provision that removes the burden for litigants to show competitive injury in order to seek damages is by far the largest area of concern. Informa finds that nearly 75% of the expected economic damage arising from this proposed rule can be tied directly to this provision.”

We’ll have more information about this study and the differences between its findings and the recent John Dunham study coming up shortly.

No. 1 It’s a solution in search of a problem.

Massive new regulatory requirements will translate into higher costs, which ultimately will be paid for by consumers in the form of higher retail meat prices.

No. 4 It will stifle innovation in livestock production, further harming consumers.

An expanded definition of what constitutes a violation of livestock laws will turn ordinary contract disputes into federal court cases. The ultimate beneficiaries will be trial lawyers, who will find it easier to win lawsuits claiming “unfair” treatment. Even President Obama’s GIPSA administrator has called the expanded violation definition “a plaintiff lawyer’s dream.” And when trial lawyers win, everyone else loses.

Pork producers will be joining tomorrow with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), the National Turkey Federation (NTF) and the National Meat Association (NMA) in releasing a new economic impact study on the proposed rule.