In the dynamic world of swine production, safeguarding herd health is paramount for sustained productivity and profitability. While traditional tools like diagnostics, vaccines, and medications are crucial, their effectiveness is amplified exponentially when underpinned by robust biosecurity measures. As Dr. Linatoc, a veterinarian with over 25 years of experience in herd health management, aptly puts it, “biosecurity should be an important part of the toolbox for managing herd health of farms”. This article delves into the critical role of biosecurity, drawing insights from real-world audits and performance data to highlight its undeniable impact.
The Stark Reality: Lessons from the Philippines
An eye-opening biosecurity audit conducted in the Philippines between mid-2019 and early 2020 revealed a concerning lack of preparedness among commercial swine farms against threats like African Swine Fever (ASF). Auditing 198 farms, representing approximately 25% of the total commercial farms at the time, the findings were sobering:
- A staggering 87% of farms exhibited low biosecurity levels.
- Only 11.6% had medium biosecurity levels.
- A mere 1.4% (two out of 198 farms) possessed very high biosecurity levels deemed sufficient to effectively combat ASF entry.
The audit identified critical high-risk areas present in at least four locations per farm, with the top risks being:
- Lack of clear demarcation between clean and dirty areas (affecting 66% of farms).
- No downtime for visitors (128 farms allowed immediate entry).
- Proximity to other farms (119 farms were less than one kilometer away from others).
The consequences of these low biosecurity standards became tragically clear two years later. The majority of low biosecurity farms were either completely depopulated or directly hit by ASF, while two-thirds of medium biosecurity farms were also affected. In stark contrast, none of the high biosecurity farms experienced ASF problems, enabling them to continue operations and pig production. This compelling evidence underscored the urgent need to educate the industry on biosecurity’s vital importance.
Understanding the Pillars of Biosecurity
At its core, biosecurity encompasses any practice designed to protect herds from the entry and spread of infectious agents and the diseases they cause. It is fundamentally divided into two crucial components:
- External Biosecurity: Focuses on preventing the entry of diseases into the swine herd from outside sources.
- Internal Biosecurity: Aims to limit the spread of disease within the herd should a pathogen gain entry, through proper management, people movement, and infrastructure.
Both aspects are equally critical for a comprehensive disease prevention strategy. Good biosecurity significantly reduces the risk of new disease introduction and controls the frequency of challenges, making other control tools like vaccines and medications more effective.
Fundamental Principles for a Secure Farm
Regardless of the specific protocols, all effective biosecurity measures are guided by two fundamental principles:
- Segregation: Establishing barriers—physical, procedural, or temporal—to prevent direct movement from dirty (contaminated) areas to clean (protected) areas.
- Physical Barriers: Involve tangible structures such as walls, fences, and clear signage for different entrances. It also includes personnel measures like changing clothes and wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when entering clean areas.
- Procedural Methods: These are strict operational guidelines that limit entry points and establish specific Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for anyone entering the farm. Examples include:
- Signing in upon entry.
- Hand sanitization, showering, and changing into farm-specific clothes.
- Practicing personal hygiene, such as regular nail cutting, to prevent pathogen persistence.
- Controlled movement of personnel within the farm, often enforced by different color-coded uniforms for different sections.
- Proper disposal of all wastes and mortalities (e.g., bagging dead pigs and having a designated pickup area separate from staff pathways).
- Regular training and retraining of farm personnel to combat “compliance fatigue”.
- Temporal Barriers: Involve increasing the downtime (time off-farm) for visitors or staff returning from days off or vacations before they can re-enter pig areas. This extends the duration between potential contact points with different pathogens.
Cleaning and Disinfection: Essential at critical control points (entry points) to prevent pathogen introduction from dirty to clean areas. It’s also vital for routine application within clean areas to reduce the gradual buildup of microbes. Critical control points are potential entry areas for pathogens via personnel, supplies, feeds, maintenance materials, and pests.
Layered Protection: The Swiss Cheese Model
A single biosecurity measure is rarely 100% effective. The “Swiss Cheese Model” illustrates that by lining up multiple, repeated controls at each critical control point, the overall efficacy of preventing pathogen entry is significantly increased. One control measure can compensate for the deficiencies of another, creating a robust defense. Furthermore, biosecurity protocols should be refined based on the epidemiology of the specific target disease. For instance, farms concerned about airborne PRRS transmission might implement air filtration systems, a strategy proven effective in boar stud farms.
Biosecurity’s Tangible Impact on Performance and Profitability
Data unequivocally supports the profound impact of robust biosecurity. A study involving over 380,000 sows in the US demonstrated the power of “Next Generation Biosecurity” (NGB) tailored for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). Farms implementing NGB showed a significantly lower PRRS incidence risk of 8.9%, compared to 40% in farms not religiously implementing NGB. This highlights biosecurity’s ability to reduce disease outbreaks and, if a pathogen enters, slow its spread within the herd.
The economic benefits are substantial. While the cost-benefit analysis can be complex, biosecurity minimizes disease losses, reduces treatment costs (due to lower morbidity), and maintains herd productivity. The cost of common diseases like PRRS ($5.50/finishing pig) and swine influenza ($3.20/finishing pig) are considerable. However, the synergistic impact of co-infections is far more devastating: PRRS and M. hyo combined can cost $9.60/pig, while PRRS and swine influenza can cost $10.40/pig. Preventing the entry of multiple pathogens is paramount to avoid these severe economic impacts.
A real-world comparison of two comparable farms (Farm A and Farm B) in the same system, with identical genetics and nutrition, vividly illustrates this:
- Farm A (conventional health status, PRRS and Mycoplasma positive) allowed staff to go home daily and was near a highway.
- Farm B (Mycoplasma positive but PRRS negative) required staff to work 26 continuous days with a 48-hour downtime before re-entry after days off, and was more isolated.
Farm B Consistently outperformed Farm A across multiple parameters in 2022 and beyond:
- Higher total born alive (0.18 piglet/litter better) and pigs alive (0.43 better due to fewer stillborns).
- Half-kilo difference in weaning weight.
- Higher farrowing rate (89% vs. 86%).
- Lower pre-weaning mortality (3.8% vs. 5.5%) and post-weaning mortality (2% lower).
- Improved pigs weaned per sow per year (1.3 pigs better).
- Significantly better Average Daily Gain (ADG) (67 grams/day difference).
- Better farm efficiency and a lower cost per pig per month (seven pesos lower).
These improvements translated into enhanced growth rates, feed conversion rates, and reproductive performance (fewer abortions, stillbirths). Furthermore, good biosecurity reduces the need for antibiotics and improves overall animal welfare.
Overcomming Barriers to Effective Biosecurity
Despite its evident benefits, implementing and maintaining robust biosecurity faces several common barriers:
- Cost: The initial investment in infrastructure and ongoing maintenance can be a significant hurdle, especially during periods of low pig prices. Many farms only realized the importance and were willing to invest once a pathogen without a vaccine, like ASF, emerged.
- Lack of Knowledge: Misunderstanding the science behind disinfection (e.g., the nullifying effect of lime and acidic disinfectants when used together) and overlooking crucial re-infection pathways (e.g., inadequate bird-proofing, pest control, or unsecured facilities after cleaning).
- Labor Compliance: Difficulty in ensuring consistent adherence to protocols by farm laborers, particularly when restricting their movement outside the farm. Compliance improved over time as laborers witnessed the loss of jobs due to outbreaks on other farms, but challenges persist.
To combat these barriers, effective strategies include:
- Regular, comprehensive training and retraining for farm personnel.
- Assigning Biosecurity Compliance Officers whose sole job is to ensure protocols are followed, disinfectants are correctly diluted, and cleaning is done thoroughly.
- Continuous monitoring using tools like ATP monitoring for cleanliness and CCTV cameras at entrances to check protocol adherence.
The Future of Swine Biosecutiry: Innovation and Integration
The future of swine biosecurity lies in integrating new technologies and strategic planning:
- Advanced Technologies:
- Sensor technologies for early warnings.
- Geofencing with GPS to monitor personnel and truck movements, notifying farms of any breaches.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) for real-time monitoring of CCTV cameras to detect and report protocol breaches, sending alerts for review and corrective action.
- Air Filtration: Increasingly adopted by some operations for breeding farms, particularly effective against airborne PRRS transmission, building on its proven success in boar stud farms.
- Integrated Biosecurity Planning: A crucial shift involves incorporating biosecurity plans from the initial design stage of new farms. This means engineers, architects, and farm managers collaborate to plan pig movement, staff movement, supply entry points, access roads, automatic feed delivery systems, mortality pickup points, and drainage systems from the outset, rather than adding controls later. While this incurs higher initial costs, it is an investment that pays off through performance improvements and continuity of productivity.
A Non-Negotiablt Investment
Biosecurity is not merely an optional add-on; it is a vital and indispensable tool for managing herd health and must always be central to discussions about farm productivity and profitability. As demonstrated by concrete examples, it is key to improving overall productivity. Given the constant threat of new viruses and pathogens to production systems, continuous investment and improvement in biosecurity are essential for the viability and sustainability of swine farms. Ultimately, the ability to sustain productivity and profitability, and indeed, the future of your herd, depends on implementing good biosecurity.
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