FFAR Funding Research to Eliminate Costly Pork Viruses

(WASHINGTON, DC) The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) awarded a Rapid Outcomes from Agricultural Research (ROAR) grant to Pipestone Applied Research to halt the spread of deadly and costly swine viruses. The grant is intended to crush a virus in animal feed by adding mitigants, or additives that deactivate the viruses, directly to animal feed. Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) virus and Seneca Valley A (SVA) are deadly swine diseases that can spread through contaminated animal feed. Swine producers have had difficulty protecting their herds from these viruses. This research will look to reduce the spread of these viruses and may be relevant to preventing the introduction of other viruses, such as African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV), to a herd. PRRS, the most economically devastating disease affecting U.S. swine production today, has infected up to 50 percent of the national sow herd in recent years. It currently costs U.S. farmers over $560 million annually. PED arrived in the U.S. in 2013, infecting and killing ten percent of the pig crop. With no treatment or cure for PED, the mortality rate can reach 100 percent in piglets. Finally, pork producers nationwide have been battling an outbreak of SVA, a relative of Food and Mouth Disease, since 2015.