Report suggests disease costs UK pig sector £858m a year
© Tim Scrivener Disease outbreaks and the impact on production could be costing the UK pig herd more than £850m a year, according to a new study carried out for the AHDB by the universities of Liverpool and Bern in Switzerland.
It compared a hypothetical, perfect UK pig farm without any losses, against existing industry averages.
The difference between perfection and average was £858m a year across the whole UK pig herd, or more than double the approximate value of the industry.
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AHDB animal health and welfare scientist Miranda Bowden-Doyle said that although it was impossible to achieve perfection, the study underlined the potential costs of disease.
Dr Bowden-Doyle explained that disease costs were not only financial but had serious knock-on effects for animal welfare and the environment.
Environmental costs were incurred through reduced efficiency caused by mortality, longer finishing periods and reduced feed conversion efficiency (FCE), she said.
In fact, it is one of the most significant contributors to the environmental impact of livestock farming, Dr Bowden-Doyle said.
Disease-free utopia
She suggested that the next step was to understand where individual farms could have the greatest impact on moving towards a “disease-free utopia”.
“Small gains in litter size, pre-weaning and post-weaning survival, FCE, days to slaughter, and mortality would pay big dividends for farm profitability and the environment,” Dr Bowden-Doyle said.
The study used economic and herd population data from Defra, AHDB and pig sector software provider AgroVision. A full report will be released by the AHDB shortly.