The Pork Checkoff announces the launch of AgView – an online animal health database and dashboard platform to help producers, veterinarians, and state and federal animal health officials communicate and make real-time decisions. 

Dr Patrick Webb, director of swine health for the National Pork Board, says that AgView, which is being tested and refined now, will be a user-friendly, valuable tool for sharing important animal health information with key collaborators. Phase one of AgView’s development will allow pork producers compliant with the Secure Pork Supply plan to share data in a rapid, efficient, and secure way, making it easy to visualize what is needed for risk-based decision-making.  

The real game changer will be further development of AgView to provide a more robust nationwide system to help producers analyze data and make decisions to improve swine health and production. AgView will help facilitate this with a user-friendly interface and encrypted cloud-based data security. 

In a swine health incident, AgView’s new capabilities will help provide state animal health officials with data they will need in the first 72 hours and beyond. This includes a geospatial map of farms, animal movement, and laboratory results that will help determine outbreak locations, the extent of its spread, and subsequent zoning decisions that will affect animal movement. 

To prepare for AgView, the National Pork Board is encouraging producers to learn how they can participate in the Secure Pork Supply plan now and begin using AgView as well.

For more information, an AgView demonstration, or questions, contact Dr Patrick Webb at pwebb@pork.org, Dr Dave Pyburn at dpyburn@pork.org, or go to pork.org/agview.

New report: pork industry makes gains in sustainability

As America’s pig farmers continue to fight back from the negative impact of COVID-19 and the ups and downs of markets and bad weather, a recent study released by the National Pork Board, Production Analysis Summary for US Pork Industry: 2017-2019, shows that America’s pig farmers continue to make strides in overall sustainability by being more efficient every day.

The 15-page report, prepared by Minnesota-based MetaFarms and its subsidiary Swine Management Services, looked at sow, nursery, finish, and wean-to-finish data over a three-year period. The results reconfirmed long-term trends of increasing efficiency, which has the additional benefit of reducing production costs.

For more information, contact Dr Chris Hostetler at CHostetler@pork.org or find the full report at library.pork.org/media/.