A Swine Program to Address and Prevent Disease

A Swine Program to Address and Prevent Disease

Lorrie Boyer
Lorrie Boyer
Reporter
National Pork Producers Council delegate Jason Propst has been a part of the US Swine Improvement Plan. From the start, he said the goal of SHIP is to protect the pork industry. SHIP was created by veterinarians to address concerns of diseases coming into the US.

 

“The US SHIP idea started back in probably 2019/2020, by some of the vets in the industry. They were looking at the concern with foreign animal disease coming into the US, mainly African Swine Fever and Classical Swine Fever. And so there's concern of, if that came to the US, what would that do to our exports of product? Because if those foreign animal diseases are found in the US, that would immediately stop our exports of pork products. And so in turn, you know, approximately 25% of our production would would stay domestically and would kind of potentially overburden our markets.”

 

Propst explains that ship is a certification program.

 

“With that, once they're certified, you know, producers are saying they're following certain practices, different guidelines. So if there is ever a foreign animal disease that, you know, we shut down markets so we can start there, these producers are going to be the first ones. They'll have opportunity to be able to move product, move things through.”

 

The next step will be to educate trading partners about the US ship program.

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