If a foreign animal disease (FAD) crisis hits, the last thing you’ll want to be doing is scrambling to figure out how to get all your animal movement paperwork in order, says Matt Ackerman, DVM, with Pork Veterinary Solutions.
That’s why Ackerman is a strong supporter of AgView, a free, opt-in technology solution that promotes business continuity in the face of a FAD. He is also one of the first veterinarians to try out the new Account Management Partner (AMP) portal in AgView.
“It provides a uniform swine movement traceability platform to document animal movements which will be necessary should we have an FAD event here in the U.S., much like Canada has PigTrace. This will allow state and federal animal health officers the epidemiologic data they need for movement traceback within 24 hours of an FAD concern,” Ackerman explains.
He believes this data will also be incredibly helpful to maintain business continuity by demonstrating to international trading partners that the country’s compartmentalization and regionalization efforts are effective, so the U.S. can maintain exports.
How Does the New Feature Work?
The AMP feature was recently added to AgView, says Patrick Webb, acting chief veterinarian for the National Pork Board. This feature allows veterinary clinics and management service companies that don’t own pigs, but manage them on behalf of pork producers, to create an account and request that their clients using AgView also have access to their account.
“The AMP portal allows our clients to grant us direct access to their information,” Ackerman says. “I can log into my AMP account and see a list of all my clients’ accounts. This provides me the opportunity to manage, analyze or advocate this information with and for our clients.”
Ackerman says it not only allows veterinarians to help manage this process, but they can also better advise producers on how to be prepared for a FAD event. This information can be leveraged for any other disease investigation, too.
To protect producer confidentiality once an account is created, Ackerman recommends letting your herd’s veterinarian know the email address used to create the account. The veterinarian will “invite” you to your AMP portal. Then, the producer must approve it.
Webb says the AMP addition has resulted in more producers getting connected to AgView and he expects to see further adoption as word gets out on this new feature.
“We all know people are short on employees right now and have a lot of priorities besides thinking about ASF preparedness,” Webb says. “But with AgView, it’s so easy to create an account. And, if you’re working with some of the major software platforms, being able to work with them to actually do the work to put those locations and movements in there and keep them current takes a lot less effort than one would think.”
A Logical Next Step
Ackerman and his partner, Dylan Lape, DVM, had encouraged their clients to complete the Secure Pork Supply documents in 2019.
“To us this was just the next step in the process,” Lape says. “For our clients who were interested, we then offered the services of uploading their premises into AgView, Secure Pork Supply documents and movements, and analyzing their information.”
Clients can pick and choose which of those services they wanted or do it on their own. But, they were strongly encouraged to get an account at the very minimum, Lape adds.
“In the future, this will allow veterinarians to manage your FAD diagnostics data from one place as well, regardless of the lab the samples went to, which will be crucial when lab space is allocated based on resources,” Lape says.
How is AgView Being Adopted?
As of Dec. 6, 361 producers had created accounts in Ag View, Webb says.
“If you look at the Pork Powerhouse Top 40, about 45% of those producers have organizational accounts in AgView, representing roughly about 27% of the total U.S. sow herd,” Webb says. “We have about 25 state animal health officials who have organizational accounts, and we’re reaching out to our next tier of state animal health officials to get more on board.”
No one questions the value of AgView, Webb says, but like most things, it requires an investment of time. However, it’s time well spent, Ackerman adds.
“First, it works like NPB said it would. Second, it is free. So even if you never use it, it is all set up and ready to go should we have an FAD event here in the U.S. You don’t want to be trying to figure this stuff out in the midst of chaos, we all will have plenty on our plates at that time,” Ackerman says. “Having an AgView account is one step closer to maintaining business continuity which should give you peace of mind this holiday season.”
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