Representative Survey for Evaluating Housing and Manure Handling Technologies of the Hungarian Pig Sector

In Hungary, there is a lack of information on the pig production technologies in place in the base year of 2005 and changes since then, as well as a lack of information on the number of pigs kept in different age and production categories, which makes it difficult to calculate ammonia emissions and reductions in the national inventories. Our research team conducted a representative survey of pig farms to assess housing and manure management technologies in the Hungarian pig sector in 2005 and 2015. Novel expert-based calculation methods were developed to convert farm data on pig populations into daily average numbers (DAN) of animals in different statistical categories and feeding phases. The survey resulted in a representative database of housing, manure handling, storage and manure application practices in Hungarian pig production. The data and methodology from the survey helped to develop an ammonia emission calculator and knowledge transfer tool (AGEM-S) for use by farmers.

The Impact of PRRS Eradication Program on the Production Parameters of the Hungarian Swine Sector

BACKGROUND

The Hungarian national eradication program of PRRS was successfully completed between 2014 and 2022. There were doubts about the efficiency of the eradication program in Hungary from the beginning to the tune that it might only be carried out efficiently through depopulation-repopulation of the infected herds, which is a very costly procedure. In our study, we investigated the impact of the depopulation-repopulation procedure, which played a prominent role in the PRRS eradication program on the productivity of the Hungarian swine sector-namely, on the number of slaughter pigs per sow per year and the total live slaughter weight per sow per year.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Since 2014, we monitored the evolution of the PRRS eradication through the depopulation-repopulation approach on the large-scale breeding herds in Hungary. Most producers replaced their herds with animals that were free of PRRS and other infectious diseases (mycoplasmosis, actinobacillosis, swine dysentery, atrophic rhinitis, etc.). On this basis, we evaluated the change in the number of slaughter pigs per sow per year as a consequence of depopulation-repopulation of the herds being carried out. In the statistical analysis linear regression was used.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of our study demonstrate that the PRRS eradication program with the herd depopulation-repopulation approach led to a considerable improvement of the productivity of Hungarian pig farming. This result also demonstrates that, independent of the PRRS eradication, it is still necessary to consider investments into the individual production units to increase efficiency, and to carry out herd depopulation-repopulation in cases where the current genetics limits improvements in productivity.