Cost of production diseases to pig farms

Production diseases usually originate from a complex interaction of pathogens, animal genetics and environment. They compromise animal health and welfare, can reduce product quality and increase environmental footprint of pig production and the use of antimicrobials. Production diseases impact farm economy and can result in loss of revenues and extra production costs. However, very limited synthesis on economic impacts of production diseases is available. The goal of this study is to review the costs of production diseases in pigs.

An extensive review of published studies was undertaken. Studies published during 1995-2015 were searched in electronic databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Google scholar, International Veterinary Information Service, the websites of FAO, OIE, British Pork Executive, Danish Meat Association, the PigSite, Cordis). The search resulted in 130 publications for review. These studies were field trials, experiments, modeling studies or reviews. Prior to analyzing the data, cost estimates reported in the studies were converted to per animal-basis by using study or country-specific data, deflated to year 2014 and converted to euros.

Reviewed studies showed great case-by-case variation in the costs of production diseases. Respiratory diseases are an economically important issue in pig production. According to the review, economic losses due to porcine respiratory disease complex (including Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae and other associated pathogens) are about €6.8 per fattening pig produced by an affected herd. Depending on pathogen and case, these losses ranged from €2 to €19 per fattening pig produced. Realistically, several diseases can occur in the herd simultaneously, pushing up total costs above these estimates. The impacts of mortality per individual dead pig can be high, but only dead animals result in mortality losses. In the studies analyzed, the reduction in returns due to pre-weaning mortality was between €12 and €23 per litter, and due to post-weaning mortality between €2 and €4 per pig. The costs of mastitis or the complex syndrome ‘Mastitis, Metritis and Agalactia’ can range up to €95 per affected sow. In the most severe cases the impacts can be even larger. The costs of lameness were available on a ‘per lame pig’ basis. In sows, the costs ranged from €145 to €180 per lame sow.

Production diseases, in particular, respiratory diseases can cause substantial losses.

The losses can vary from farm to farm and case by case. The review suggests that the current literature on economic costs of production diseases is limited.

This work was conducted under the EU-funded PROHEALTH project.

Disclosure of Interest: None Declared.