The Role of Pig Diseases in Structural Change in the Canadian Pig Industry

• Author / Creator

  Zheng, Yanan

• Since their first discoveries in the early 1990s in Canada, pig diseases, especially porcine reproductive respiratory syndrome (PRRS) and porcine circovirus associated disease (PCVAD), have plagued the Canadian pig industry, and the problem became more severe with the onset of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) in 2014. In the meantime, the industry has also seen dramatic structural change with a decrease in pig farm numbers and an increase in total pig numbers. Using the census division (CD) level data obtained from the Census of Agriculture Questionnaires, we find not every CD across the country experienced the same type of structural change. Indeed, about 69% of the CDs in Canada went through decreases in both pig farm numbers and pig numbers over the period 1981 to 2016. This research examines how pig diseases (PRRS, PCVAD, and PED) have affected structural change in the Canadian pig industry at the individual census division level while controlling for the effect of other key economic explanatory variables over the period 1981 to 2016. Farm structure in our study is defined by farm size (i.e., average number of pigs per farm), and the impacts of various economic factors including the U.S. country of origin labelling on the industry’s structural change are empirically assessed using random effects generalized least squares models. The empirical results indicate pig diseases did affect the Canadian pig industry’s structure, and they have played a more significant role in the structure of farms in eastern Canada. Given that pig diseases had played a significant role in pig farming operations in some geographical regions in Canada, we further investigate how various factors including: 1) on-farm disease status; 2) management variables; 3) farmers’ knowledge about and attitudes towards various treatment methods play a role in pig farmers’ decisions regarding the uptake of preventive measures. In general, we find : 1) farmers who experienced disease outbreaks are more likely to implement more preventive measures than those haven no experience; 2) farm and farmer characteristics such as production type and operators’ age are important determinants of adoption decisions; and 3) the better the farmers’ knowledge about a particular practice, the stronger their biosecurity behavior.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Pig diseases
  • Canadian pig industry
  • Structural change
  • Census division (CD)
  • Porcine circovirus associated disease (PCVAD)
  • Farmers’ decision-making process
  • Porcine reproductive respiratory syndrome (PRRS)
  • Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED)

• Graduation date

  Spring 2018

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R38C9RK27

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.