Eye-opening. Impactful. Urgent. Important. These are just a few ways pork producers described a recent tabletop exercise to help ensure total industry awareness and preparedness for a foreign animal disease (FAD). For Jim McCoy, an Ohio show pig producer, the experience went one step further.
“Being alert and vigilant to the things that could possibly happen are extremely important. Hog producers and farmers are very resilient people and always find a way to deal with the problems that can come about in the industry,” McCoy says.
But it also reinforced how important everyone is in this effort.
“This exercise reminded me that everything in life is interconnected,” McCoy says. “It’s a trickle-down effect of what affects one aspect of industry and life itself truly affects everything. We often don’t realize that until we really start thinking about it in an in-depth way.”
A New Vantage Point
Take-home messages like this are exactly what the Ohio Pork Council, along with Ohio State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine, hoped would resonate last month during an exercise designed specifically for the show pig community in Ohio and neighboring states. The event, held at OSU’s Fawcett Center, drew more than 50 participants from Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan who represented show pig exhibitors, breeders, veterinarians, government officials and more.
“All of the day’s speakers drove home the overall goal of business continuity in the wake of an FAD outbreak,” says Cheryl Day, OPC executive vice president. “We know how important FAD preparedness is for our commercial industry, but it’s just as important for our show pig stakeholders as well. That means ensuring our show pig folks are preparing now so that when the time comes, we can see that part of the industry return as quickly as possible, too.”
Subject matter experts from the National Pork Board aided OPC staff and the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s veterinary team to provide insights on how an African swine fever (ASF) outbreak would play out nationally, regionally and locally. Topics centered on how to deal with the short- and long-term effects of how a confirmed case of ASF would affect all U.S. swine production, including a temporary moratorium on pig shows.
Patrick Webb, National Pork Board assistant chief veterinarian, has spearheaded FAD drills for many years across the country. He says the Columbus event was one of the best he’s been involved with in a long time.
“I always enjoy working with producers and youth in these types of activities because you get real-time feedback on how well they are understanding the information and then applying it to the FAD scenario we’re using with the group,” Webb says. “It’s gratifying to see how much people can learn in such a short time to be better prepared.”
Kentucky show pig producer Casey Montgomery says it was helpful to be able to step into various roles as producers during the exercise to think more critically about how an FAD would affect the entire supply chain.
“The ASF tabletop exercise was very eye-opening as we explored the impact an FAD can have on the pork industry,” she says. “It allowed us to think critically about Secure Pork Supply plans, biosecurity, production measures and the general health and wellbeing of our swine operation as disease began to strike. This event allowed me to not only see the bigger picture of what our industry will look like and take action to do if an FAD outbreak occurs, but also the necessity for advocacy.”
This starts with a willingness to engage and continue in conversations about FADs with consumers, producers and swine exhibitors to protect the swine industry, the pork supply and agriculture, Montgomery adds.
We Are on the Same Team
Still, Ohio show pig producer Gus Mitchem admits he wasn’t enthusiastic about learning more about ASF.
“I only viewed it as the end of the show industry and nothing more,” Mitchem says. “During the exercise we were given a mock scenario that showed how widespread this type of outbreak would be in the entire agriculture industry. During the tabletop, my role was to look through a different lens as a commercial producer. I definitely left with that broadened view.”
One of the other messages many show pig producers took back to their operations was a greater understanding that all producers – show pig and commercial alike – are in it together. The families who show pigs in Ohio are just as important in this effort as the largest commercial swine producers, Day points out.
“I think it’s very important that we keep an open line of communication and realize whether it’s show pig or commercial, we are on the same team and we need to be pulling in the same direction,” McCoy says.
Before attending the FAD tabletop exercise, Mitchell Webster, a Kentucky show pig producer, practiced biosecurity. However, he admits he didn’t quite understand how important it is until now.
“After learning about the impending threat ASF, classical swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease pose to not only show pigs, but to the future of pork in the U.S., there is no doubt I will be more cautious and mindful of where I have been and what I could bring back.”
Read more:
Show Pig Industry Gathers to Discuss ASF Prevention and Preparedness
