Author: c001os

Kansas State University researchers have published the findings of a study that looks at a seemingly simple way to add another layer of protection for the US swine industry against a crippling, viral disease, according to the K-State Research and Extension news service.

K-State swine production specialist and veterinarian Jordan Gebhardt said scientists have used some common household items to test their ability to detect the presence of African Swine Fever on equipment and surfaces where animal feed is transported.

Detecting the presence of the African Swine Fever virus on the surfaces of trucks, shipping containers and other materials entering the United States, “seems like such a simple research question,” Gebhardt said, “but there’s a lot of complexity in how that is done.”

The research, originating from fieldwork conducted by K-State scientists in Vietnam, relies on diagnostic tests known as polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which use DNA or RNA from a sample to diagnose infectious disease. In most cases, a PCR test can give a reliable result within 24 hours, often much more quickly.

K-State scientists relied on simple techniques to collect PCR samples. Gebhardt said they swabbed surfaces that have come in close contact with feed using four materials that might be found in any consumer’s home: a four-inch square cotton gauze, polyester tipped swabs, sponge sticks and a dry sweep cloth.

“If we want to test a surface — whether that be a truck or a shipping container or a surface on a farm – we need to know how to collect a sample from that surface and then get the best diagnostic result we can to determine if the virus is present or not,” Gebhardt said. “We call that process environmental sampling. To date, there hasn’t been a strong set of qualified research projects that have done a great job characterizing the simple question of what’s the best way to collect that sample.”

The general mood in Poland’s pig industry is somewhat depressed, Bartosz Czarniak, a spokesman from Poland’s pig farmers and breeders association Polsus, told a local news outlet Cenyrolnicze.

During the last weeks of December, pork prices in Poland stagnated. “I know that for those who were counting on a revival, this is poor consolation, but looking at what is happening on the market at the moment, this is, in fact, optimistic news,” Czarniak said. 

In this background, he indicated that quite a few fattening farms, which purchased imported piglets hoping for better prices, now have to sell pork at a loss. Prices have yet to reach the desired level because of waning demand for Poland’s and, in general, European pork on foreign markets, he assumed. “European pork is among the most expensive – if not the most expensive – in the world, which is why export results are falling,” he said.

The EU pig industry is losing ground on the global market. Everything indicates that in 2024, the United States will overtake the European Union and become the world’s largest exporter of pork, agreed Jakub Olipra, economist at Credit Agricole Polska Bank.

Czarniak said Poland needs to develop breeding farms to bolster the average pig industry’s profitability. “The dependence of the domestic market on imported piglets is clearly taking its toll, which is why we should take care of the domestic sow herd,” Czarniak said. “In my opinion, we should focus on rebuilding parent farms. All the more so if we look at the welfare policy in the EU. The limitation of animal transport time is still hanging in the air. This remains a big risk factor for fattening farms looking for piglets on the market. We should strive to rebuild our own piglet production,” Dr Olipra echoed the claim. “Without our piglet production, with such a high dependence on imports from Denmark, it is difficult to even talk about food security in the pork market”.

The annual contest of most promising pig innovation in the Netherlands has been won by a novelty to weigh pigs using camera images, without the use of scales.

It was the 9th edition of the contest, which is officially called “Het beste idee van Varkensland” (which roughly translates to “The Best Idea in the Pig Community”). The winning innovation, developed by ICT expert Pieter Hoenderken, revolves around the use of artificial intelligence, which will help translate the dimensions of a pig into its weight – a process that can be done using fixed cameras. The intention behind the concept is to create a portable solution that the pig farmer can use to move around the barn.

Monitoring pig growth and health are important issues – as one of the main targets of producing swine is to get them to slaughter in a uniform manner. In case of deviation from the average, something may be wrong. Hence Hoenderken’s claim that the innovation can even contribute to improving pig welfare.

The technology is initially being prepared to determine the correct pig delivery weight. In the long term, it will be possible to monitor the development of pigs with the invention and link that to the management system.

Jon Oatley, a Washington State University professor in the School of Molecular Biosciences, was invited by the US Embassy in Romania to speak about his research into gene-editing livestock. But most of the questions the European policy makers asked had to do with public acceptance of the technology.

“I was invited to speak at this summit because of what we’ve been able to accomplish at WSU not just in the research world but also in the policy space. We’ve become the place in the US that everyone’s looking to for progress in this area,” said Oatley, who is also the associate dean for research at WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Oatley led the research team that developed “surrogate sires,” a gene-editing method which can help disseminate desirable and needed traits in livestock, such as better heat resilience. The technology promises to vastly improve protein sources to help feed the world’s growing population — but only if people will eat the meat from gene-edited animals.

Oatley and his team not only worked to secure Food and Drug Administration approval to put several CRISPR-modified pigs into the food chain but also ate the resulting sausage at a public cookout, inviting the media to try it themselves. This is the same goal Oatley had in Europe where policymakers are very hesitant about anything that might be considered “genetically modified.” “It’s not a concern necessarily about safety really,” Oatley said. “It’s the perception of how are we going to put something that could be considered genetically modified on to dinner plates? But we’re already doing it. We have been genetically modifying animals and crops through selective breeding for thousands of years. This is just a different tool.”

Gene editing involves working within a species’ genome to create changes in an animal or plant that could occur naturally. It often gets falsely conflated with genetic modification methods that insert foreign DNA from one species into another.

The most frequent questions Oatley received in Europe were about the potential need for labelling products, how gene-editing might affect animal welfare, and how to improve the public’s trust of science. Oatley doesn’t believe in the need for labelling meat from gene-edited animals if it has already passed safety tests as it should be on the same level as meat from selectively bred animals.