MORTON, Ill. – According to Dr. Jim Lowe, DVM, MS, DABVP (Food Animal), animal disease will worsen as agriculture “scales up” production in the decade ahead. How to stay one step in front of potentially herd-depleting viruses and diseases, including Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), was a topic of discussion during a Dec. 16 roundtable presented by the Illinois Pork Producers Association (IPPA).

“The burden of disease is going to continue to get worse as we add size, scale and intensity to the industry,” said Lowe, who spoke frankly about the next decade in livestock disease control to dozens of central Illinois pork producers gathered at Freedom Hall in Morton in Tazewell County. “We’ve built a system that optimizes viral transmissions. All are well-adapted to highly concentrated rapid transmission rates. Until we think of it differently, we might not make a lot of headway.

“We’re in an old industry that we’re going to have to replace buildings for. We can replace them with the same stuff we had and have the same things, or we can think differently about how we can design a system that might not have as much disease pressure.”

The next 10 years in livestock and swine disease pressure will likely be “dynamic” due in part to industry diversification, according to Lowe, who is executive associate dean of online programs and Extension professor for the Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine at the University of Illinois. He feels that diversification of the pork market through more specialty production will mean new supply chains and new opportunities for disease transmission. “What (will) those supply chains look like in terms of rearing systems and production constraints?” Lowe asked.

Eradication of PRRS was touched on by Lowe, who also has an active international consulting practice. His consulting relationships include clients in the U.S., Europe, Australia, the Middle East and Asia, along with major packer-processors, food retailers and multinational animal health suppliers.

“Yes, maybe,” Lowe said of the question of whether PRRS eradication could be accomplished through gene editing. “There are some serious technical issues with editing. Is it going to be cross-protective? Do we know that it is going to protect against everything and the next thing? There are still some bits to be worked out on that. And how do we scale it?”

Also speaking about porcine disease trends and PRRS eradication was Ken Doyle, president of Hickory Grove Pork Farm in Gillespie, Ill. “I think PRRS is the Achilles heel of U.S. pork production today. I am told that Wisconsin is PRRS-free, so it can be done and is being done in this country,” Doyle said. “I think it is past time for us to look at eradication. There are people that don’t agree about gene editing or altering. I think all those things are coming, but in the meantime we are going through a lot of money.”

Doyle pointed to data showing that PRRS costs the pork industry $38 per second in lost revenue, or $2,200 per minute. “$136,000 per hour, $3,287,000 every day, $1.2 billion per year is what Iowa State (University) says it costs this country in PRRS every year,” he said. “That’s real money.”

Doyle said he is also concerned about prevention of African swine fever, questioning whether the pork industry is truly prepared to deal with its inevitable encroachment of the U.S. herd. “I think there’s probably no way in hell (we are ready),” he said. “I think if we can look at a PRRS eradication program that it could be the template to prepare for what is coming. This thing (PRRS) is chewing us up. I talked to a vet this morning on her way to a 6,000-sow unit that has had 1,000 abortions in the last seven days, with 200 dead sows.”

Jennifer Tirey, executive director of the IPPA, told producers that the National Pork Producers Council’s recent Swine Health Strategy survey showed that U.S. pig farmers are united in their concern for reducing herd losses from pandemic diseases and preventing foreign and emerging diseases from affecting pigs. As for PRRS-resistant pigs, “The National Pork Board is sponsoring research to look at what consumer behaviors are going to be around the PRRS-resistant pig. We’re hoping to have that information by the end of the year, and as soon as we get that research information, we will share that out with producers,” Tirey said.