The burden of animal diseases in UK pork production

The problem      

Livestock form part of an economic system that contributes to lievelihoods, businesses, employments, exports and food products. Animal diseases and health problems constrain the UK livestock sector in its ability to contribute to the social, economic and cultural outcomes of society. Understanding how to effectively and efficiently address these impacts requires systematic data collection and analysis to quantify and understand the burden of animal diseases.

Aims and objectives       

This project aims to initiate the estimation of the burden of animal disease in UK pork production. It will provide a basis for future work to understand resource allocation for animal health and welfare in the UK pork sector. It will further provide future opportunities for decision makers to assess the balance of production losses and expenditure on critical health issues limiting productivity, welfare, compromising human health and contributing to inefficient land and water use.

Approach            

There will be four key outputs from the project: 1) classification of UK pork production systems; 2) estimation of biomass and capital investment in animals and infrastructure in each system; 3) description of the current levels of inputs and outputs in each system; 4) estimation of the animal health loss envelope. Pig population data will be compiled and production systems identified with farmer and agribusiness input. This population data will enable estimation of biomass and economic value. The animal health loss envelope can then be estimated based on the gathered data and farm enterprise budgets being compared with a 'Utopian' scenario where there are no health and welfare challenges.

Key findings from the project

1. Data on population size is available from various national and international sources (e.g. Defra, AHDB, FAOSTAT, Eurostat). However, the granularity of the data varies widely, as does the actual pig population size during the year.
   The estimated biomass of the breeding population was 98,692 tonnes and 175,091 tonnes for the fattening pig population, respectively. The biomass of the entire UK pig population was estimated at 273,949 tonnes. The mean capital value of the entire UK pig population was estimated at £399.6 million.
   
   
2. Diseased farms (current state) showed substantially lower output (animals and revenue) than the healthy farms free from all possible causes of animal disease burden. Furthermore, diseased farms also showed lower animal input, mainly caused by the decreased efficiency and throughput.
   Overall, 188,536 fewer working sows, 937,316 fewer weaners and 448,330 fewer feeders would be required in a disease-free utopia scenario to achieve the current production output (pigs slaughtered per year) with disease.
   
   
3. The annual Animal Health Loss Envelope (AHLE) for a medium-sized breeding farm was estimated to be £394,000, for a rearing farm £156,000 and for a fattening farm £246,000. Estimates for an entire UK production stages were £343 million, £140 million and £375 million for the breeding stage, rearing stage and fattening stage, respectively. For the overall UK pork production system, the AHLE was estimated at £858 million per year.

Further work is required with the industry to identify the current levels of animal health expenditure including the costs of pharmaceuticals and veterinary services at farm-level plus the investment by the industry and government on research, education and coordination.

Joint work is also needed to set the ideal health state and its parameterisation and access disease surveillance data to support attribution of losses and expenditure in the animal health loss envelope to specific causes.

We would like to hear from those in pork production and allied industries who may be interested in co-designing the next stages of this work. Please email gbads@liverpool.ac.uk if you would like to participate.