What ASF in the Dominican Republic Means for U.S. Producers
NPB collaborates with partners to prevent African swine fever from entering the U.S. and prepare the pork industry for how to respond if it does.
AgView is a free, opt-in technology solution from the National Pork Board that helps producers of all sizes and types provide disease status updates and pig movement data to state animal health officials.
This promotes business continuity for America’s pig farmers by uniquely making disease traceback and pig movement data available to the USDA and state animal health officials on day one of a foreign animal disease (FAD).
For the U.S. pork industry, AgView is the path to protection for America’s pig farms that will help navigate uncertainty in the event of a crisis.
When permissioned by producer-users, AgView can provide real-time health status plus site and pig movement data from participating farms to state animal health officials.
This information will aid in the response of a suspected or confirmed foreign animal disease. These features could help the pork industry rapidly contain or regionalize a potential foreign animal disease outbreak.
According to a 2020 study completed by economists at Iowa State University, the economic impact of a hypothetical African swine fever (ASF) outbreak could cost the pork industry more than $50 billion over 10 years.
AgView uses much of the same data required by participants in the nation’s Secure Pork Supply plan, but connects the dots and leverages the information for actionable intelligence in a manner that allows state veterinarians, producers and others to make sound decisions quickly.
1. A confirmed or suspect case of a foreign animal disease (FAD) is reported to the State Vet.
2. The State Vet uses AgView to request producer data by affected location.
3. An email is sent from AgView to the producer with the locations and reason for request.
4. In AgView, the producer clicks on SHARE in the Share Request Tab and can elect to share or not share the data.
“AgView reduces risk because it allows us to trace animal movements and will help us contain a foreign animal disease and repoen export markets faster.”
Scott Phillips | Phillips Family Farms | Missouri
“In unstable times, we need certainty. AgView can provide this to our operations and help us overcome a foreign animal disease disaster.”
Seth Krantz, DVM | Tosh Farms | Tennessee
“AgView establishes a single ‘gathering spot’ for producer-controlled data that will help create a more unified and faster response to a foreign animal disease.”
Heidi Vittetoe | JWV Pork | Iowa
“We are participating in AgView because we are always looking for ways to be more efficient and effective in our response capabilities.”
Sara McReynolds, CVM, MPH, PhD | Kansas Assistant Animal Health Commissioner
With enough voluntary participants, AgView will help the pork industry to rapidly contain or regionalize an FAD outbreak. This will help restore safe pork exports and get business back to as close to normal as possible more quickly.
Participating producers should regularly input animal health information, which then they can choose to share when requested by state veterinarians during an FAD outbreak. This will allow the state animal health officials to better respond in an outbreak through rapid contact tracing and containment measures.
With AgView and producer permission, animal health officials get rapid and accurate visualization of relevant pig movement data and diagnostic disease test results to create visibility, accountability and trust during an FAD event.
AgView is a new software-based technology solution that will provide near real-time health and movement status to help the U.S. pork industry to rapidly conduct contact-tracing to contain or regionalize a foreign animal disease outbreak such as African swine fever. Likewise, it can help facilitate pig movement among its users during such outbreaks to help achieve business continuity.
For the U.S. pork industry, AgView is a path to protection for America’s pig farms that will help cut through the fog of war in the event of a crisis.
In the event of a FAD outbreak like ASF, AgView can provide real-time data from producers to state veterinarians and others (if allowed) to help the industry with a faster, more effective response aimed at disease containment, regionalization and business continuity.
In the event of an ASF outbreak, state veterinarians need to know and communicate a lot of important data that can be requested in a standardized format from the AgView app, including:
An outbreak of a foreign animal disease, like ASF, would be a devastating blow for pork industry. The impact would be catastrophic on the entire supply chain — from grain farmers and pig farmers, to packers and processors — the industry would not recover quickly.
Just as COVID-19 ravaged the pork industry, leading to billions of dollars in losses for America’s pig farmers, the threat of ASF or another foreign animal disease is far worse. If we learned anything from COVID-19, it’s that we can’t afford to be caught off guard again.
According to a 2020 study completed by economists at Iowa State University, the economic impact of a hypothetical African swine fever (ASF) outbreak could:
As a no-fee product offered by the National Pork Board, AgView can be used by all pork producers and state veterinarians in the United States AgView is designed to help the pork industry be more prepared for a foreign animal disease, so for it to be most successful, adoption by as many producers and state veterinarians will be critical.
All U.S. pork producers will benefit from integrating AgView into their farming operations. AgView is for all pork producers; it does not matter how large the farm is, how many pigs the farm has, the type of pig that is raised at the farm or the business goals of the operation.
For the most part, producers have premises identification numbers and robust movement records that can facilitate rapid contact tracing should ASF occur here. In the event of an FAD outbreak, information that producers have put into the AgView application in peace time (which may be easily imported from many popular record-keeping systems) will help state veterinarians quickly react in the event of an FAD. Information that can be inputted into AgView includes:
Yes. AgView is most effective if all pork producers and state animal health officials adopt it and provide up-to-date site, animal movement and health data. Broad use of AgView is essential for the best protection of the pork industry from the negative impact of an FAD such as African swine fever.
AgView can help state health officials contain a foreign animal disease faster and prove where a foreign animal disease is or isn’t in the U.S., allowing the pork industry access to export markets sooner. On the farm level, pork producers who have real-time data in the AgView system will make foreign animal disease investigations quicker and easier for state health officials to carry out contact tracing when investigating sites. By providing data that is accurate, real-time and standardized in AgView, state health officials may be able to investigate a possible foreign animal disease faster, allowing a pork producer to move pigs more quick
AgView is supported by the National Pork Board and funded by the Pork Checkoff.