The Elephant In The Barn: Why We Can’t Ignore This Risk on the Pig Farm
The U.S. swine industry is facing a labor nightmare. Although one solution – contracted labor – has helped many farms across the country battle this challenge, it poses risks that simply can’t be ignored any longer.
“It’s the ‘elephant in the barn’ we don’t want to talk about,” says Lauren Glowzenski, VMD, veterinarian service manager at TriOak Foods in Oakville, Iowa. “Contracted labor can pose a risk to a site’s biosecurity and is an issue we tend to avoid discussing as an industry because we have so many issues with labor.”
Late last year, an outbreak of Actinobacillus pleuropneumonia (APP), devastated one of the farms she oversees. Glowzenski believes the disease entered the farm by contaminated equipment coming on to the site.
“We narrowed it down that it was probably the loading crew’s equipment that brought the disease to the site, whether it be the electric prod or the sorting panel,” she says. “At $40 a panel, we could have bought well over 1,000 panels for the cost of our disease. It's very frustrating, but it’s shown us we need to make sure we have everything in place on the farm to be able to execute good biosecurity – regardless of who is entering the barn.”
What’s the Future of Contracted Labor?
Labor continues to be a major constraint for the pork industry and Glowzenski thinks it’s only going to get more challenging to recruit and retain talent in the swine industry. This results in the need to hire more contracted services to get basic jobs done from daily caretaking, vaccination, loadout, power washing and disinfection, and repairs and maintenance.
She believes there is a big disconnect between the owner of the farm and the staff who are on the farm hiring people and crews to get the jobs done today.
“We are transitioning from a model of owner-operator to more investor ownership, the traditional model of ‘I am the farmer, I am the producer, I own the hogs, I am in control of everything myself’ to people who are just more specialized and not as well-rounded in their abilities, it’s the modernization of our industry,” Glowzenski explains. “The good people have continued to expand and have taken on more barns. When you take on more responsibility, you're getting spread thinner. So, you're going to start contracting out more services.”
That's why she is bringing the elephant “out of the barn” to help improve the health of the industry as a whole.
Is a Solution Possible?
“I think we can move the needle on this,” Glowzenski says. “We first need to understand where the site-specific risks lie with individual producers and independent sites. Looking at our business, we have some sites where it's still the owner/operator/daily caretaker doing everything. We're less concerned about the risk on those sites, as opposed to those that have an ownership that's more of an investment entity and they're contracting out labor.”
At that point, she says farms need to put barriers in place to understand the risk and how it can be mitigated. Focus on areas that are of utmost concern and the highest risk to the individual site, including people entry, loadout and mortality disposal.
“Putting barriers in place in those key areas where we are most likely to get diseases from is really critical. That's where I think we can make some strides and need to make some advancements,” Glowzenski says. “Today our biosecurity and finishing unit biosecurity is pretty lax. Most units don't have showers. Many have a rudimentary bench or maybe a clean/dirty line on the ground. We're not doing all we can from a biosecurity standpoint on the basic level.”
That’s where efforts need to start – putting barriers in place to keep the disease from entering the barn.
“The daily caretaker, vaccination and loadout crews are the highest risk because they're getting into the barns with a lot of frequency. They'll probably be seeing many farms on the same day, and it could be spanning across multiple production systems,” Glowzenski says. “We really need to have site-specific equipment and provide everything on the site needed to execute the biosecurity steps.”
People Entry
When it comes to how people enter the farm, there are many things that can be done to make the site more biosecure. Is there a bio bench? A Dutch entry? Is there a shower?
“If a site doesn’t have one of those three things in place, we are not prepared to enter this site in a biosecure manner,” she says. “Having clothing, socks, boots for anybody entering the farm, even the guy who's 4X and oversized is critically important. If you don't have those things in place, they're probably not going to change into the extra small coveralls or the ones that are going to be tight and they're going to bust out of them when they bend over. We need to make things easy and effective, make them feel clean.”
And pay attention to shower cleanliness, too, she adds. The shower shouldn't have insects or frogs on the side or snakes or scorpions.
“I've seen it all,” Glowzenski shares. “We must have good entry procedures that people are going to want to execute...like a clean shower. If we don't have the basics in place, we're not going to get the job done.”
Loadout Process
“The loadout process is the highest risk area on the farm. Do we have a good process around it?” she asks. “All diseases exist at the slaughter plant. So, one of our greatest risks of getting those diseases is at that loadout shoot.”
Keep the driver on the trailer, be strict about the clean/dirty lines, and have dedicated equipment on the site to complete the loadout process, Glowzenski advises.
“A lot of teams bring an electric prod site to the site to do loadout because they believe the one on the farm isn't operational,” she says. “Just being prepared and letting the loadout team know you’ve checked to make sure equipment is working is key. Do you have everything in place to have that loadout crew come in and execute in a biosecure fashion?”
There should be a sink on site to wash their hands and the loadout chute should be swept of debris and shavings, washed and disinfected after every live haul movement. In a staged loadout study by Derald Holtkamp, professor at Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Glo Germ showed that even a staged loading procedure did not completely eliminate contamination.
“That's a huge risk. Too often, we're neglecting that risk, ‘Oh, I'll get to it tomorrow morning.’ Well, a lot of our mortalities are also being brought out on that same chute,” Glowzenski says.
Mortality Disposal
That’s one of the reasons why the third greatest risk is mortality and dead disposal. Do farms have a biosecure process about removing mortalities from the site?
“Don't step outside and back into the unit. It's a common practice to use that loading chute to also remove mortalities. That demonstrates the importance of making sure that loadout chute is very clean at all times,” Glowzenski says. “Because maybe that afternoon or the next day, you're going to be removing mortalities out of that same chute. And as you bring those deaths out, you're going to walk back into the barn. If that loadout shoot isn't clean, you're probably walking disease right back into the barn.”
She says the risk of rendering is real, but says it can be mitigated on the sites, making sure it's away from the unit. She advises sites to make sure those areas are cleaned and disinfected, too.
“Don’t forget about wildlife and rodents. We certainly aren't baiting 100% or effectively on all sites. These are all things in the realm of control, making sure we have bait out as rodents and wildlife can go site to site,” she says.
Ask the Hard Questions
The No. 1 priority on all swine farms needs to be closing obvious and basic biosecurity gaps, Glowzenski says. With the number of disease threats that are extremely costly to the business and to production, the risks can’t be ignored any longer.
“Sometimes I don't want to ask the hard question, because I know it's going to be an answer I don't want to hear,” she admits. “But if you don't address it, you're never going to get better. If we can close gaps in those three key areas and put barriers in place that force people to execute a biosecure process, I believe we will tremendously reduce disease incidence in the industry.”
Recognizing risks, asking the right questions and addressing the elephant in the room are just a few ways that you can make a really big difference not only for yourself, but for the industry as a whole, she says.
“We know biosecurity works because we've done it on the sow farms and the boar studs, we just need to bring that same mindset to the finishing units,” Glowzenski says. “We'll do better and hopefully prevent some big, bad, ugly diseases from entering those barns.”
Ultimately, she says it’s about protecting your investment – an investment that you want to keep around for a long time.
“This is in your power to control. It’s in your circle of influence,” Glowzenski says. “We have to get better about biosecurity. We can't turn a blind eye to it.”
More from Farm Journal's PORK:
Biosecurity: Are We Adding Hazards Faster Than Control Measures?
APP Strikes with a Vengeance in Upper Midwest Pig Farms
What Do You Need to Pay Attention to Now Regarding Swine Health?
