Before COVID-19, another coronavirus was wreaking havoc in North America, only this one was attacking pigs.

This coronavirus causes porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), and is shed in large volumes in the feces and other pigs become infected when they ingest feces-contaminated materials.

PED was first detected in the United States in 2013 and subsequently in Ontario in 2014. The Canadian outbreaks were associated with spray-dried porcine plasma, a product that is added to feed to increase protein content. Molecular analyses identified China as the most likely source of the North American PED outbreak since strains found in North America were most similar to those recovered from the Asian country.

Why it matters: The risk of disease from feeding animal-based ingredients is well understood, but less is known about how viruses survive in plant-based ingredients, making identifying contamination more difficult. 

The role of contaminated feed materials has been heavily scrutinized in the wake of the PED outbreak. There are concerns that other viruses, such as those that cause African swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease could enter Canada through feed products.

Recognizing the risk of feed components is a game-changer in disease prevention. And it is a unique concept because the concern predominantly lies with non-animal origin/plant-based feed components. More traditional routes of entry that are heavily regulated include live animals and animal products such as undercooked meat.

It seems obvious that feeding animal products to other animals has the potential to spread disease. We all know how that went with BSE. But non-animal food products are a different story. These include grains (corn, soybean meal, distillers grains), amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Bulk feed ingredients are imported into North America as part of a global supply chain and then are incorporated into complete feed rations for pigs and other livestock.

To get into North America and reach susceptible animals, viruses hitchhiking on feed products have to survive a series of hurdles. First, the feed product has to be contaminated with virus. The virus has to remain active (viruses are generally susceptible to drying out, high heat and UV light exposure in addition to common disinfectants).

The shipping journey will take virus-contaminated product through a variety of heat and humidity variations in the 30- to 40-day journey across the globe from China. Then the virus has to survive various feed processing procedures and get shipped to a farm. Finally, a susceptible pig needs to ingest enough active virus to cause an infection.

While it seems like there is a low probability of this actually occurring, growing evidence supports that some viruses can overcome these challenges.

A 2014 study published in BMC Veterinary Research, led by Dr. Scott Dee, found that pigs fed contaminated feed material could develop PED. This study was important because it proved the concept that contaminated feed was a potential source of virus to pigs that ate it.

Other laboratory-based investigations found that PED virus could survive in soybean meal at room temperature for more than a week and in feed samples, both wet and dry, for more than four weeks. One study examined how much PED virus is needed to cause infection, concluding that one gram of virus-laden feces could contaminate an incredible 450 tonnes of feed.

Researchers have also simulated the arduous trans-Pacific shipment to see how PED and other critically important viruses such as African swine fever virus and the FMD virus might survive in various feed components.

The studies have found that all three virus types survive well in several components such as soybean meal and vitamins.

An important missing link in this story is exactly how these plant-based feed ingredients get contaminated at the site of origin. Further studies are needed to better understand how feed ingredients are produced, stored and shipped to better understand potential sites of contamination and mitigate the risk.

Despite this uncertainty, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has instituted stringent importation requirements for plant-based feed components to reduce the risk of foreign virus introduction.

The CFIA says that importers or exporters are required to demonstrate how particular time and temperature requirements are met as preventive controls for the virus. However, the CFIA says that quarantines are not used in this process.

It is unfortunate that it took the introduction of PED into North America to recognize the potential risk of imported feed components. But now that we know the risks, we can apply this knowledge to safeguard the swine and other livestock industries in Canada from other big, bad diseases we want to keep out of our borders. 

Dr. Jamie Rothenburger, DVM, MVetSc, PhD, DACVP, is a veterinarian who practices pathology and is an assistant professor at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

Updated Nov. 12 to reflect CFIA information on quarantines for feed.

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Manitoba Pork announced Wednesday that the last of the premises to report a PED outbreak in that province in 2020 has now achieved “presumptive negative” status.

Manitoba has reported 192 premises with PED since the disease arrived there in 2014. But no hog herds in the province are currently reporting positive for the disease, the agency said.

“Coming into spring 2021, it is critical that we do not let our guard down and enhance biosecurity on our farms to prevent PED and any other pathogen from entering the farm,” Manitoba Pork said Wednesday.

In Ontario, where the PED virus (PEDv) was first confirmed in Canada in January 2014 and went on to cause outbreaks at over 150 sites, just four farms are currently considered positive for PED, according to Swine Health Ontario.

Those include a farrow-to-finish operation and a finishing farm in Lambton County, a farrow-to-finish site at Middlesex and another hog operation in the Niagara region.

As of Dec. 29, 2020, Quebec was reporting just one site positive for PED, a finishing operation in the Estrie that had been confirmed on May 7 last year.

Alberta has had just four PED outbreaks in hogs, all in early 2019, and all of which have since been deemed presumptive negative, according to the Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network. Prince Edward Island, the only other affected province, had just one outbreak in 2014 in a herd since deemed negative.

According to Manitoba Agriculture, a hog farm which has previously been confirmed positive for PED can be deemed “presumptive negative” after the farm has put measures in place to eliminate PEDv from all pigs and pig contact areas and the virus is confirmed absent through repeated animal and environmental testing.

Depending on herd type and stage of production, a PED-infected premises can take four to six months to reach presumptive-negative status, but PED risk may still remain in the manure storage system on a presumptive-negative farm, the province said.

The coronavirus that causes PED can affect hogs at any age, leading to watery diarrhea and vomiting. It’s most damaging on farrowing operations, as it’s often fatal to newborn pigs under seven to 10 days old.

PEDv is not known to affect people or any other species and is not considered a food safety issue. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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PlantForm Corporation has launched a new research project with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and Western University in London to target E.coli infection in pigs, specifically O157:H7, through a feed additive.

Why it matters: O157:H7 is a strain of E.coli that is harmless to most animals but can be dangerous and even deadly to humans. It occurs naturally in the gut of animals like cattle and pigs and is shed into the environment through their manure.

“What we’re trying to do is reduce the prevalence and shedding of E.coli, so the idea is to come up with a feed additive that can be given before slaughter, a powder administered in the feed that is a low-cost solution,” says PlantForm CEO Don Stewart.

Although E.coli O157:H7 is not a new challenge, it made particular headlines in Canada about two decades ago when the town of Walkerton’s water supply became contaminated, causing six deaths and making hundreds more sick.

That helped spur the development of a vaccine for cattle to reduce prevalence of the pathogen in the animals, but it did not see wide uptake. According to the Beef Cattle Research Council, it is not currently available.

E.coli contamination results in expensive – and often extensive — recalls of meat products, but can also cause food safety issues in produce if vegetables in the field come into contact with water containing the pathogen.

PlantForm’s vivoXPRESS platform uses genetically modified tobacco plants to ‘grow’ biopharmaceuticals (plant-based antibodies and vaccines), making it a faster and more cost-effective alternative to the commonly used fermentation systems for biopharmaceutical production. It’s technology originally developed at the University of Guelph by one of PlantForm’s founders, Chris Hall.

Dr. Rima Menassa is a research scientist in plant biotechnology at AAFC in London, who has developed plant-based bovine antibodies that prevent E.coli’s ability to colonize in the gut wall.

With this new project, she is looking to prove her concept in animals, starting with mice trials and then moving into pigs. Although O157:H7 is more commonly associated with cattle, it is carried by pigs and she hopes the outcomes will be easier to accomplish on monogastric or single stomach animals like pigs, where digestion is a faster and simpler process than in ruminant animals.

Pig uptake could be simpler than ruminants

“We are hoping that with pigs, who have only one stomach and digestion taking two to four hours, the antibodies can pass through and get to the intestine without being degraded. It is more complicated with ruminants, so we decided to take the first step in a pig and then maybe go to ruminants,” she explains.

The goal is to see whether the antibodies that work in the lab setting will translate to animals, both in preventing O157:H7 from growing in the gut and in preventing shedding if an animal already has the pathogen.

This new, two-year project is supported through the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs’ Ontario Agri-Food Research Initiative, which is funded by the Canadian Agricultural Partnership. It is part of wider efforts to find low-cost, practical ways to prevent infection and transmission of pathogens that impact human and animal health.

Although this is work with a food safety focus, Menassa and PlantForm are also working on a project with direct animal health implications — a vaccine for Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv). It causes severe dehydration and diarrhea in pigs, and although older animals can recover, the virus is generally fatal in young piglets.

“The idea is to vaccinate pregnant sows, so they generate the antibodies that are transferred to the piglets and they in turn become protected,” says Stewart.

The first case of PED in Ontario was identified in January 2014 and since then, the industry has been actively working to manage and ultimately eliminate the disease from the province.

According to Menassa, the PED project is still in early stages, but if early results are promising, she hopes to move into a study with pigs later this year.

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The chief provincial veterinarian’s office (OCPV) on Monday reported that the agriculture department’s lab in Edmonton on Jan. 22 found a weak PED positive in a sample taken via the provincial environmental surveillance program.

That said, no new cases of PED have been found in hogs on Alberta farms to go with that environmental positive, the provincial government noted in a separate notice.

The province has “promptly implemented the Alberta response plan to investigate potential sources of this weak positive result” and “actions have been taken at the sampling site to mitigate any further risks of potential exposure,” the OCPV said in a statement for hog producers.

“This finding demonstrates the value of the surveillance program in providing early detections of the virus and reinforcing the risk that remains out there,” the OCPV said.

It also “serves as a reminder that at any time, a site that receives pigs faces continuing threat to be contaminated and test positive, which reinforces the importance of biosecurity at the farm level being maintained as the last line of defense for your herds.”

Alberta was relatively untouched by PED up until 2019, when four cases were confirmed in hogs on Alberta farms between January and March, but no further such cases have since appeared.

Producers and “industry partners directly affected by this discovery” have been notified, Alberta Pork said in a separate statement Monday, noting “all relevant parties are co-operating.”

Alberta Pork, in the same statement, again urged producers to “always practice proper biosecurity on-farm and during animal transportation” and to “properly” wash transport trailers and equipment.

All swine manifests, including farm-to-farm movements, should be submitted to Alberta Pork “in a timely manner,” the hog producer agency said, as biosecurity and traceability are “important parts of effective disease prevention.”

The PED virus (PEDv) does not affect people and is not a food safety risk. It causes diarrhea and vomiting in pigs and can lead to high mortality rates in herds of very young pigs not previously exposed.

PEDv spreads usually by direct contact between infected and non-infected hogs but can also be tracked in on clothing, boots, vehicles, equipment or other items that contacted feces from infected animals.

PED is not a federally regulated disease, but is provincially regulated in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec and Ontario. The virus’ first confirmed appearance in Canada was on an Ontario farm in 2014 and on-farm cases since then have mainly been in Ontario and Manitoba.

The most recent of Ontario’s on-farm cases appeared last month and earlier this month in Oxford and Perth counties respectively. Manitoba confirmed its most recent case in a nursery barn in its southeast region in November. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The provincial agriculture ministry confirmed the new case Friday, marking Quebec’s first since May 2015 and its 17th since the disease first appeared in the province in February 2014.

The Monteregie, the region of southwestern Quebec on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, has been home to all but two of Quebec’s PED cases.

Le Bulletin des agriculteurs reported Tuesday that the hog operation, with about 3,700 weanling pigs, is in the St-Damase area just south of St-Hyacinthe and has been quarantined.

The weanlings at the farm all came from the same farrowing operation, Le Bulletin said, noting no clinical signs of the disease had been seen at the farrowing site but tests were underway to confirm its PED status.

Caused by a coronavirus, PED leads to severe diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration in affected pigs and can infect up to 100 per cent of a previously unexposed herd, with mortality rates of up to 100 per cent in very young suckling piglets.

According to Quebec’s provincial swine health team (EQSP), the disease presents in weanlings and growing hogs as widespread diarrhea, vomiting and loss of appetite, with mortality rates of one to five per cent in infected groups. In fully-grown adult hogs, mortality rates run below one per cent.

PED is known to be infectious only to swine and is not considered a food safety or human health risk.

Quebec’s ag ministry, on its website, urged producers to immediately contact their veterinarians if clinical signs of PED appear among hogs in their barns, and also to call the EQSP at 1-866-218-3042.

Elsewhere in Canada, Ontario has seen 124 on-farm PED outbreaks since 2014, including seven since the beginning of 2019; its three most recent cases were confirmed Feb. 20.

Manitoba, which has had 108 such cases since 2014, has confirmed two so far in 2019, the most recent on March 7.

Alberta has confirmed just four such outbreaks in its hog herd, all in the last three months. Prince Edward Island reported one outbreak in 2015.

Saskatchewan has turned up environmental samples of the PED virus, but no cases in hogs to date.

Following the appearance of PED in Alberta, Saskatchewan’s ag ministry reiterated it’s important to treat all commingling sites, such as assembly yards and packing plants, as potentially contaminated with PED; all transports should be “thoroughly cleaned and disinfected” before returning to the farm.

“If you have not reviewed your biosecurity protocols with your veterinarian lately, now is the time to do it,” the Saskatchewan ministry said. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Officials with the provincial ag department and Alberta Pork haven’t said where the fourth case is located, nor how far it is from the three southern Alberta properties where outbreaks in hogs were also found so far this year.

Any producers within a 60-km buffer zone surrounding the fourth affected property “will be notified separately and provided additional biosecurity instruction,” Alberta Pork said in a statement Friday.

Past that, the ag department said Monday, “all producers in Alberta are advised to increase their biosecurity.”

The province’s three other cases so far were announced in January, February and earlier this month respectively, all on 300- to 600-sow farrow-to-finish operations. In all cases, Alberta Pork said Thursday in a separate release, pig movements were stopped “immediately” following discovery of the disease in hogs.

The first confirmed case was discovered on a farm northeast of Calgary, while the second and third were on farms near Lethbridge, about 30 km apart and about 300 km away from the first case, provincial officials said.

No sources have yet been found for the virus’ arrival in the province and “any possible connection between the outbreaks remains uncertain.”

The first farm has since “emptied its inventory” while the second and third “are in the process of cleaning up and eliminating the disease while animals remain on-farm.”

Alberta Pork on Thursday quoted chief provincial veterinarian Keith Lehman as saying differences exist between Alberta and other known provinces where PED has been found.

Alberta’s hog farms, for example, are farther apart, and assembly yards “routinely test negative for diseases.”

Ontario, which has seen 124 on-farm PED outbreaks since 2014, has had seven since the beginning of 2019; its three most recent cases were confirmed Feb. 20. Manitoba, which has had 108 such cases since 2014, has confirmed two so far in 2019, the most recent on March 7.

PEDv is a coronavirus which leads to severe diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration in affected pigs and can infect up to 100 per cent of a previously unexposed herd, with mortality rates of up to 100 per cent in very young suckling piglets.

A provincially reportable disease in Alberta since Canada’s first outbreaks in 2014, PED is known to be infectious only to swine and is not a food safety or human health risk. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The provincial government on Jan. 7 confirmed the first case of PED to appear in hogs in Alberta, at a 400-head farrow-to-finish operation at an unnamed location.

The PED virus (PEDv) is a coronavirus which, once introduced in a herd, causes vomiting, watery diarrhea and dehydration in infected animals. Mortality rates run up to 100 per cent in infected nursing-age piglets but are much lower in growing hogs, which generally present with milder diarrhea.

“Enhanced biosecurity measures” are now in place on the entire affected premises “to reduce the risk of the virus leaving the site,” the provincial agriculture and forestry ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

No pigs from the affected farm have left the property since the diagnosis, nor have any been marketed to slaughter or assembly sites anywhere in Alberta, and there are “no plans to do so,” the province said.

How the virus might have reached the farm also remains a mystery, the province said. “All pig traffic in and out of the site has been traced and no transport links have been identified as potential sources.”

Furthermore, the province said, environmental surveillance testing from Alberta’s “high-traffic pig sites” is all still negative for PED.

“We’ve been investigating all of the well known sources of infection that have occurred in previous cases, such as transportation and feed and visitors, but to date, all of the transportation links to slaughter, assembly yards and truck washes, all our sampling has come back negative,” Dr. Julia Keenliside, a provincial veterinary epidemiologist in Edmonton, said Wednesday on the Prairie hog industry program Farmscape.

“We’ve looked at any possible contact with Manitoba or the U.S. and we have not found anything there.”

Also, she said, the province’s environmental sampling at other sites has turned up negative to date “and we’ve done tracebacks to all of these sites and we’ve not come up with any obvious links to any positive cases.”

Also, “no other cases of PED have been identified” in the province in the week since the lone outbreak was confirmed, the province said in its statement. So far, Keenliside said on Farmscape, “we believe that no other operations have been exposed.”

The lone hog operation now dealing with PED “reacted very quickly and has worked closely with their farm veterinarian,” she said. “They implemented enhanced biosecurity around the barn fairly quickly as well as traffic control and traffic rerouting on and off of the premises.”

Next up, she said, is the development of a cleanup plan for the property. That includes weighing options on where to market the farm’s animals, to limit risk of spreading the virus.

No pigs will be moved from the farm until a veterinarian’s certificate can be provided, Alberta Pork said in a separate statement Tuesday.

It’s too soon to say how long the cleanup will take, Keenliside said, but added that the experience at affected properties in Ontario and Manitoba has shown it can take several weeks or more.

Meanwhile, Alberta Pork said Tuesday, “all producers are reminded to be diligent with their biosecurity protocols during this critical time.”

Any hog producer who suspects his or her pigs may be infected is asked to contact their farm’s veterinarian “as soon as possible,” the province said Tuesday.

Alberta Pork reiterated Tuesday that while the PED virus affects pigs, it poses no risk to human health, the incident “has not caused any food safety concerns” and pork products “remain safe for consumption.”

Alberta had guarded its PED-free status since the disease was confirmed in the U.S. in mid-2013.

Ontario, where PED made its first Canadian appearance in January 2014, has since seen confirmed outbreaks at 117 hog farms, most recently on Dec. 20, 2018 at a farrow-to-weaning operation in Perth County.

PEDv has also appeared in 107 on-farm outbreaks in Manitoba, nearly all in the province’s southeast, most recently at a finisher barn on Dec. 28, 2018.

Quebec has reported 16 outbreaks since 2014, most recently in the Centre-du-Quebec region in April 2015 but mainly in the Monteregie. Prince Edward Island reported one outbreak in 2015. Saskatchewan has turned up environmental samples of PEDv, but no cases in hogs to date. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Alberta Pork, the province’s hog producer commission, and the provincial government on Tuesday announced an outbreak of the viral disease at what was described as a “400-head hog operation.”

Javier Bahamon, quality assurance and production manager for Alberta Pork, told Alberta Farmer on Tuesday that the outbreak was discovered last Thursday (Jan. 3) on a farrow-to-finish operation and was reported to the provincial ag department by a private veterinarian.

The barn in question has been “contained,” he said, and other producers in the area have been notified. No other information was immediately available Tuesday on the general location of the property.

The porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) is a coronavirus which, once introduced in a herd, causes vomiting, watery diarrhea and dehydration in infected animals. Mortality rates run up to 100 per cent in infected nursing-age piglets but are much lower in growing hogs, which generally present with milder diarrhea.

Alberta Pork emphasized in a release Tuesday the disease poses no risk to people or other animals and pork products remain safe for consumption.

The provincial ag ministry said in a separate statement it doesn’t expect to see any “market access implications” for Alberta hogs or pork as a result of the new finding.

All that said, “any sudden onset of unusual diarrhea should be investigated immediately by a veterinarian,” the province said.

PEDv is known to spread via the “fecal-oral” route, most commonly through infected feces coming onto farms on “various surfaces” that can carry and transmit the virus, Alberta Pork said.

Biosecurity protocols are of “utmost importance” to curb further impact, Alberta Pork said. “It is especially critical during this outbreak that producers consider enhancing biosecurity on-farm and in animal transportation.”

Producers “are encouraged to submit all swine manifests, including farm-to-farm movements, in a timely manner” and off-farm destinations such as abattoirs “should be considered as a potential source for bringing disease to your herd.”

Alberta had guarded its PED-free status since before the disease first appeared in the Canadian hog herd, on a hog farm in southern Ontario in early 2014. The disease was confirmed in the U.S. in May 2013 and Alberta declared PED a provincially reportable disease the following Jan. 20.

Alberta’s surveillance turned up an environmental sample of PEDv in an “office space” at a hog handling facility later that fall, but the disease hadn’t appeared in hogs anywhere in Alberta until now.

Since the disease’s first appearance there, Ontario has confirmed outbreaks at 117 hog farms, most recently on Dec. 20, 2018 at a farrow-to-weaning operation in Perth County.

PEDv also turned up in hogs in Manitoba in 2014 and has appeared in 107 on-farm outbreaks in Manitoba, nearly all in the province’s southeast, most recently at a finisher barn on Dec. 28, 2018.

Quebec has reported 16 outbreaks since 2014, most recently in the Centre-du-Quebec region in April 2015 but mainly in the Monteregie. Prince Edward Island reported one outbreak in 2015. Saskatchewan has turned up environmental samples of PEDv, but no cases in hogs to date. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Why it matters: AFS has potential to devastate Canadian swine herds if it enters the country, with serious trade implications.

Dr. Doug MacDougald said there are good reasons for that, given the heavy trade flows between China and Canada.

He said Swine Health Ontario (SWO) is in the “really early days,” of developing a “command centre” to respond to cross-border swine disease. But until that goal is reached, “it’s certainly a real concern if China blows up” with an ASF epidemic.

MacDougald, a swine specialist with Stratford-based Southwest Ontario Veterinary Services, is the representative for the Ontario Pork Industry Council on SHO’s advisory board. SHO got its start as a response to the 2014 outbreak in the province of the porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus.

But Rome wasn’t built (or, perhaps more precisely, the walls protecting Rome weren’t built) in a day. The organization’s goal of implementing a rapid swine disease response system remains in development.

According to MacDougald, the command centre would be home to people with training specific to porcine disease outbreaks, “who are ready to implement what they’ve been trained to do as soon as possible.”

So far, the command centre remains a work in progress, and the SWO has applied for funding through the Agricultural Adaptation Council to further its effort.

In the meantime, the emergence of ASF in China, after reportedly first being brought (in its most recent European resurgence) to Lithuania from east Africa, elevates the level of concern in North America. The high frequency of back-and-forth trade between the two pork-producing and pork-consuming regions, means there’s now a much greater likelihood that feed ingredients from an infected region could make their way to the North America.

Other key means of transmission are through tick bites in the wild boar population, via cooked or uncooked meat, and through manure or other DNA on the boots or clothing of people travelling between farms.

Bianca Jamieson, media relations strategist with OMAFRA, said in an email that OMAFRA is “monitoring the reports about cases of ASF in China.”

She added that “the Ontario swine industry has taken the lessons learned from previous experiences with PED and Senecavirus A and are well-positioned with respect to understanding the importance of biosecurity and the specific measures needed to prevent the introduction of disease to their farms.”

While agreeing that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) would be the lead agency across the country in the event of the emergence of ASF, MacDougald stressed the finalization of the SWO command centre would provide considerable assurance for the province’s swine sector.

Until that happens, he urged pork producers to make sure they know everything they can and be ready to implement actions to help prevent ASF’s spread.

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Producer-driven data systems will likely continue to grow with the potential to give Ontario a competitive advantage. But what are the next steps?

Why it matters: Aggregate data networks are already used to monitor and prevent the spread of pests in field crops, as well as disease in livestock. Some see the role of farm data as expanding from commodity-specific issues to more open data systems that can improve emergency response, farmer accessibility to data, and agricultural policy.

Clare Schlegel, a pig farmer from Perth County and board member for Swine Health Ontario, says reporting programs have been employed now over several disease outbreaks to prevent, track, and respond to swine diseases such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) and porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED).

Much of this is done through voluntary producer reporting as part of the Ontario Area Regional Control and Elimination (ARC&E) program. In this system, farmers sign up and the health status of their animals is tracked with the goal of eliminating diseases.

Ontario was lauded by other jurisdictions in North America for its ability to control the spread of PED, a virus that causes diarrhea among most areas of sow production and high rates of mortality among piglets.

Quick-responding data systems and the willingness of producers and veterinarians to share information meant less impact from the disease in Ontario than in the U.S.

Co-operation and information sharing made Ontario a leader in swine disease elimination, through the ARC&E programs where farmers and their service providers worked together to eliminate diseases first in neighbourhoods, then regions and eventually the province.

Preventing pathogens

It’s not just livestock farmers in Ontario who have made use of producer-driven data to manage risk to their farms. Projects like the now eight-year-old Western Bean Cutworm trap network exemplify how pest-prevention data can work. This crowd-sourced project aggregates cutworm numbers across Ontario and beyond. Data generated through the network are then applied to digital tools that can warn farmers of imminent cutworm pressures.

The network’s online presence is at the WBC Trap Network website.

Schlegel, a longtime participant in swine health disease monitoring systems, says the information sharing opportunities provided by the program allow farmers and other industry professionals to identify where disease originates, and apply controls.

If PRRS or PED is discovered on a farm, for example, participants in the ARC&E program are sent a notice. Those producers can then enact more stringent biosecurity protocols, talk to employees about the situation, help transporters ensure trucks visiting contaminated sites are thoroughly cleaned, and more. This system, says Schlegel, has allowed the Ontario hog industry to limit the spread of diseases such as PED, and stamp it out wherever possible.

Schlegel also says the program will soon be upgraded to incorporate transportation data. More specifically, digital records of every animal will be kept as they move between farms and to the processing plants. Health data for those animals can then be layered on top.

“This is one of the few systems, where if you talk about it for an hour, virtually everyone sees the benefit,” says Schlegel. “It’s not government regulated — this is farmer driven.”

Data segmentation reduces effectiveness

Reporting programs like those described above are powerful tools. However, the overall on-farm impact of aggregate data is highly segmented in its usefulness, says Karen Hand, researcher in applied biostatistics and director of research data strategy for the University of Guelph’s Food from Thought program, an initiative focused on using Big Data to benefit food production and biodiversity.

Hand says data streams exist on many levels, and are held by a multitude of sources — from in-tractor precision application programs to individual agronomy companies and commodity monitoring systems like the Western Bean Cutworm network.

Currently, there is no one location where all the information can be combined and analyzed to determine a farm’s infection risk. Looking at each data stream individually, she says, is not conducive to delivering farmers and veterinarians useful information in real-time.

If such a system did exist, farmers could then be notified concerning their quantified risk and suggested next steps.

“If we had the capability to predict risk in real time we could get the resources needed to critical areas,” says Hand. “We need pipelines in between.”

Central platform already developed

Hand says synthesizing all agricultural data streams requires collaboration from government, academia, and industry. Work done by agricultural groups and institutions, led in part by Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, has already produced and tested a made-in-Canada “IT architecture” that could begin absorbing data streams from all Canadian agriculture sectors.

The system was created after consulting with industry on what data streams already exist in different sectors.

According to Hand, the platform was tested last year. However, long-term government support, not support on a project-to-project basis, is required for the system to be sustainable.

“This type of system has the potential to move us to a proactive as opposed to a reactive model, where farmers that are at high risk will have access to products and support and farmers at low risk do not have to purchase or apply products,” she says.

Hand also believes synthesizing multiple data streams into one accessible Canadian system could prove useful for policymakers. She adds the next generation of farmers are tech-savvy and will need access to data more than ever.

“Can we use it for regulatory purposes to reduce on-farm paperwork? We’re increasingly asking farmers to do more paperwork but a lot of that data already exists,” Hand says.

The right to your own data

Interconnected agricultural data systems could also be used to prove the sustainability of Canadian agriculture both domestically and abroad. However, a lot of farm-generated data is currently held by private companies and organizations both in and outside the country.

This raises sovereignty questions as data generated on Canadian farms only becomes accessible to those holding the data. Sometimes this isn’t an issue. Hand says most companies are open and willing to share, although there are exceptions.

“We need data to support sustainability,” says Hand. “We know Canadian farmers follow best management practices, but how do we prove that? It’s really going to come down to proof.”

Trade aside, a more nationalized data system could have practical implications for day-to-day farm operations.

“If you’re a livestock producer, you might want data off your robot that your nutritionist can use, but you can’t get it,” says Hand. “Can we assure producers they know where their data goes and that they have the right to that data?

“We like to say (farmers) need it in their own bank accounts.”

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