The main value proposition of the AgView tool from the Pork Checkoff has not changed. Its primary purpose is to help put users on the path to protection against disruption caused by foreign animal disease (FAD). This is done using the tool’s unique ability to do disease traceback and show ongoing pig movement data should a foreign animal disease such as African swine fever reach the United States.

While the overall function of AgView will remain focused on FAD mitigation and business continuity, the National Pork Board will be announcing additional AgView features in 2022. This builds upon a major feature released in late 2021 - the Account Management Partner (AMP) feature, which offers veterinarians quick access to future AgView capabilities such as near real-time lab results.

An early adopter of the AgView AMP feature is Dr Matt Ackerman, DVM, Pork Veterinary Solutions in New Palestine, Indiana. For his clients, he offers related services that include uploading several key pieces of data into AgView, including swine premises, Secure Pork Supply documents, and pig movements. This allows for a custom analysis of this information as well. “Having an AMP portal allows our clients to grant us direct access to their information,” says Ackerman. “This provides me the opportunity to manage, analyze, and advocate this information with and for our clients.”

According to Ackerman, some unexpected benefits from AgView adoption have also helped both his clinic and clients. “It has forced us to revalidate our premises IDs. It is interesting to see how many barns have changed in our flow over the past couple of years. Getting on AgView allowed us to catch some incorrect premises ID versus map locations.”

Plans for future AgView functionality include allowing veterinarians to access client diagnostic data once permission is granted. This will offer a single location to analyze even more data for improved response time. In the interim, the most recent AgView information can be found by going to porkcheckoff.org/agview. For additional information, contact Dr Patrick Webb, DVM, at pwebb@pork.org or 515-223-3441.

Certified Swine Sampler Collector Training Program is live

The Certified Swine Sampler Collector (CSSC) Training Program has been launched and several state veterinarians across the Hog Belt have already adopted the program. They have begun to launch the CSSC program in their respective states to get more producers trained and prepared should a crisis such as African swine fever reach our shores.

The CSSC program is an industry-wide initiative jointly managed by the National Pork Board, the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, and Iowa State University. The program is designed to help during a foreign animal disease response by relying on the current on-farm labor force as a critical asset for increasing sample collection capacity. The program also assures state and federal animal health officials that producers and caretakers have been trained prior to an outbreak through a standardized process to correctly collect, handle, and submit samples to certified laboratories.

For USDA Category II accredited veterinarians with swine experience who wish to train individuals to become CSSCs, the first step is to contact the State Animal Health Officials in the state(s) where they plan to train or use CSSCs to confirm their eligibility to participate in the program and any additional requirements that exist. For more information and to access the training materials, go to securepork.org/cssc. Contact Dr Pam Zaabel, DVM, at pzaabel@pork.org or at 515-223-2764.