Although it may not be time to sound a big alarm in the pork industry over the recent discovery of H5N1 in a backyard pig in Oregon, it can serve as a reminder to the U.S. pork industry to never get too comfortable when it comes to disease prevention and preparedness.
“It’s easy for people to get complacent,” says Dusty Oedekoven, chief veterinarian for the National Pork Board.
That’s why he encourages producers to sign up or commit to actively using AgView, the National Pork Board’s voluntary traceability platform, to help the entire pork industry be prepared in case of a foreign animal disease outbreak.
“AgView is built for the industry’s well-being, and we encourage people to use it,” Oedekoven says. “There’s no regulatory requirement to put your data in there, but it is put in there securely and confidentially and held until it’s needed. It’s then shared when the producer permissions it.”
The reason traceability of the live swine sector is so important is because one of the goals of a disease response would be to stop the disease from spreading further, he says.
“State and federal animal health officials would do that by limiting the movement of live animals in an attempt to stop the spread of disease from one geographic location to another,” Oedekoven explains. “But it’s also well understood that by the time we would have identified that outbreak, many pigs would have already moved, and there would be a need to go back and find out where affected pigs have previously been, what animals they’ve had exposure to, and subsequently the trace-out from those animals.”
Although it’s a need we don’t have today, it’s a potential future need to quickly trace the movement of pigs and understand which animals need to be limited in their movement to stop the spread of disease and which animals can be cleared for continued movement and continued business, he says.
Positioning for Future Industry Needs
“We’re getting direction from the National Pork Board’s board of directors and from AgView users that AgView should be the database of record for inter-premises movements related to US Swine Health Improvement plan (US SHIP),” says Patrick Webb, assistant chief veterinarian at the National Pork Board, who was instrumental in rolling out AgView to the pork industry. “If there is a mandatory pre-harvest traceability program coming down the pipeline, they believe AgView should be positioned as the database of record.”
NPB is making sure the traceability side of AgView is improved to make it even easier for users to get real-time data into AgView to support traceability efforts, Webb says.
“With one AgView account, the producer creates the account, they get their data in the account, and they keep their data current. They can share if there’s an emergency with the state vet, participate in the US SHIP pilot program (which will soon be codified by USDA) and also be best prepared for a mandatory traceability system if that is proposed by USDA,” he points out.
AgView’s Role in Fighting Endemic Disease
In addition to the many ways AgView is already helping the pork industry, many veterinarians and producers are looking at it and saying, ‘Hey, if this tool is good for foreign animal diseases, how about we look at this tool for endemic diseases? What can AgView do in the future for PRRS? What can AgView do in the future for influenza or M.Hyo?’
Webb says this is one reason why some people are investing in AgView to support either elimination or control programs focused on these endemic diseases.
It’s a great asset for both producer users and veterinarians using the account management partner accounts to see how disease moves through a production system. It allows them to do an investigation forward or backward, Webb says.
“If you have sick animals, you want to know what happened,” Webb says. “You can customize your AgView Map View to color movement lines. There are some fun benefits for the producer to be in AgView on a daily basis to understand traceability within their own production system.”
One of the benefits of AgView is that it removes what Webb refers to as ‘the middle man.’ When a producer creates an account, they put their locations in and get their movements in. They keep those current. Once they click the button, they don’t have to think about it again.
“AgView is the only tool I know of where a producer could go in and see locations and movements and laboratory test results all in one spot. A producer could open up their AgView account every day and take a look at their map view and understand what’s going on related to disease status. And if you want to build in even more bells and whistles to it, then you use the logic of the system to inform the producer,” Webb says. “Being able to turn on and off movements in AgView and see site statuses, you can start to get an idea of how disease is moving through your production system.”
With a little bit more work and working on permissionings as well, you could potentially utilize AgView to understand what the site status is for your neighbors, Webb says.
“We’ve had producers say that would be valuable because they could route trucks differently or gain situational awareness related to their farm’s geography,” he adds.
That could carry out further someday into a broader region, and eventually even nationally, to understand the status within a state or within a bigger region in multiple states, Webb says.
“The sky is the limit. You just need the vision and the investment to trick those things out, make them work the way they should,” Webb says. “That would drive the value for producers to be in the system every day, and drive them to keep data current, because they’re using it daily to better understand how things are working on their farm or working regionally.”
Improvements Won’t Stop
Since the launch of AgView four years ago this month, technology keeps advancing.
“It’s a good time to ask ourselves, are we still on the right track? Are we getting the best value for our investment in maintaining this? When you build a database like this, there are ongoing costs associated with doing that, such as bug fixes in the code and defects and things like that, ongoing patches and ongoing technology costs in keeping it up to speed and working as it should,” Oedekoven says. “AgView interacts with program databases at the state level, at the federal level, and also gathers producer information through APIs from multiple sources of data and other software platforms. Whenever you have that many connections, there’s ongoing tech costs.”
NPB recently set out to evaluate two things. First, they wanted to find out if they are still getting the best value for their investment to maintain the database. And secondly, they wanted to see if there are other opportunities that can enhance the user experience in AgView.
“At the end of the day, what we really seek to do is ensure AgView continues to be the tool to maintain pig movement data and share it efficiently and quickly in the time of an outbreak, so we can return to business just as quickly as possible,” Oedekoven says.
Have questions about AgView? AgView has office hours on the second Thursday of every month where you can ask questions and find out more about what’s coming regarding AgView’s features. Learn more here.
