“Great innovation only happens when people aren’t afraid to do things differently” (George Carter).
It has been nearly 20 years since the first commercial sow farms were filtered with the goal of controlling PRRS virus. This was certainly different at the time. Farmers and veterinarians didn’t know if it would work. What they did know was that the survival of many family farms depended on changing the strategy in preventing PRRS.
For generations, the sow farm was a foundational piece to their family farm – a truth that still stands today. Ownership of sows was a way of securing a pig supply, controlling health and genetics, and building equity for the farm. PRRS was threatening that paradigm, as it was frequently infecting sow farms and eliminating the ability to consistently control health. For many farms, high infection rates were becoming unsustainable.
Fast forward 20 years, and filtration has become one of the pillars of sow farm biosecurity at Pipestone, now managing over 50 farms with air filtration. Those individuals who dared to think differently and took that initial leap of faith changed the course of history forever – both for their family farms, as well as for the swine industry.
Now, farmers find themselves asking the same questions about wean-to-market barns: what can we do to reduce wean-to-market PRRS infection rates, beyond abandoning or relocating barns? We believe the time has come to challenge the current paradigms in wean-to-market PRRS control and consider if filtration is part of the next generation of wean-to-market biosecurity.
Examples in operation today, both in the United States and internationally, that have demonstrated proof of concept. In China, Pipestone has had first-hand experience with a concept called micro-filtration that has been effective in reducing both PRRS and African Swine Fever. Domestically, there are examples in operation that utilize a simple seasonal filtration design that mimics or comes from the basic concepts used in sow farms today. While the sample size is small and the duration is not long, the results thus far suggest the concept can be successful.
Two decades of filtration have taught us a couple lessons that are worth considering:
- Filtration mitigates risk and reduces infections, but does not eliminate risk. In dense swine-producing areas, filtration has reduced the frequency of breaks on sow farms. Our goal when looking at filtration should be to reduce the frequency of infection, not eliminate all risk.
- Filtration only controls infection by air. We must have strong biosecurity in other areas of mechanical transmission as well to reduce PRRS infections. If farms are not going to execute on the basics of biosecurity, filtration is not the solution.
As with any innovation, we will continue to learn from both successes and setbacks. Standards for filtration may need to evolve to fit the unique challenges of wean-to-market settings, but the pursuit of perfection should not hinder progress. This technology will not fit everyone and is not needed for everyone, but for some farmers, this could be the next chapter in biosecurity for those brave enough to think differently.
Want to dive deeper? Listen to the full conversation on the SwineTime podcast.
