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This is very bad. The hog farms I worked on in Iowa had them packed fairly close, so it's easy to see how this thing could spread so quickly.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/04/28/killer-virus-spreads-unchecked-through-us/?intcmp=latestnews

Those Por Motorcycles.......oh you mean the OTHER type of hogs

The National Pork Board has spent about $1.7 million researching the virus

A drop in the ocean.

Researchers also are exploring whether the widespread use of pig-blood byproducts in hog feed might have introduced the disease.

Might not be the cause but its still a pretty fethed up thing that should be looked at across the whole spectrum of animal rearing for food.

Gotta say that the only things that may contain this virus are much stricter controls on transportation and rearing. I don't know how much registration and regulation already goes on in the US.

No wonder bacon has jumped up in price.

WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!

Time to stock up on pork products.

We can only hope it spreads to wild hogs. Those things are a disaster...

 Mr. Burning wrote:

The National Pork Board has spent about $1.7 million researching the virus

A drop in the ocean.

Researchers also are exploring whether the widespread use of pig-blood byproducts in hog feed might have introduced the disease.

Might not be the cause but its still a pretty fethed up thing that should be looked at across the whole spectrum of animal rearing for food.

Gotta say that the only things that may contain this virus are much stricter controls on transportation and rearing. I don't know how much registration and regulation already goes on in the US.

With this virus killing hogs by the millions and no signs of slowing, $1.7 million in research is pathetic.

One thing about hogs is that they can go cannibalistic in a quick hurry under the right circumstance. We would keep hogs of different weight in separate penned groups. A 150 pounder broke through a pen one night into a group af bigger pigs and was almost instantly devoured down to a few scraps. When we'd castrate them, it was common to see the critters eating the testacles that were thrown to the side.

THANKS OBAMA

 Barksdale wrote:
THANKS OBAMA

What's this got to do with anything?

Relapse wrote:


With this virus killing hogs by the millions and no signs of slowing, $1.7 million in research is pathetic.

Without knowing more about what that 1.7 million is actually buying in research, it may actually be a great deal for the pork industry... I mean, if there is already ongoing research in the field, adding this 1.7 mill might be a huge economic boost for what seems a very low cost.


Honestly, saw the title was hoping it was referring to the wild hogs that have infested the SE part of the country

From experience, research into animal diseases tends to be quite underfunded and understaffed.

I've seen some footage of american factory farmed pigs, and it isn't surprising that a virus could spread quickly in those conditions. The problem is that drugs are generally not that effective against viruses, and the conditions are perfect for a rapid spread.

It's likely that the losses will be significant, but that resistant animals will survive.

 Da Boss wrote:
From experience, research into animal diseases tends to be quite underfunded and understaffed.

I've seen some footage of american factory farmed pigs, and it isn't surprising that a virus could spread quickly in those conditions. The problem is that drugs are generally not that effective against viruses, and the conditions are perfect for a rapid spread.

It's likely that the losses will be significant, but that resistant animals will survive.

It could really get bad, as if it isn't already, if infected, weak animals get eaten before they can be culled out.

I hope there can be some action to preserve the income of the farmers.

Relapse wrote:

 Barksdale wrote:
THANKS OBAMA

What's this got to do with anything?

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/thanks-obama

 Da Boss wrote:
I hope there can be some action to preserve the income of the farmers.

The thing I worry about in this is that more little farms get wiped out, putting more food production into the hands of a few big corporations.

Seems to be affecting the piglets more.

Perhaps they need better rearing conditions for the sows.

Relapse wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I hope there can be some action to preserve the income of the farmers.

The thing I worry about in this is that more little farms get wiped out, putting more food production into the hands of a few big corporations.

Which could be especially bad for the people who like the "organic" foods... I mean, I dont know if there's such thing as free range pork, but if there is and theyre affected by this virus, that whole sector of the market is probably fried to a crisp.


Although, I would almost assume that if a hog was raised in a free range environment, the whole herd would be less susceptible to the virus, due to having more space and open air, etc.

Yeah, but realistically we couldn't provide bacon at the price we currently do or in the quantities if all of it was organically farmed. And the land use would be much greater, leading to greater habitat destruction and probable local extinctions of wildlife.

When it comes to agriculture, there's no free lunch, sadly.

"organic" foods

The first rule about "organic" foods is that the "organic" part is a lie.

Therefor, anyone who walks into a run of the mill grocery store and wastes money on "organic" foods, is an idiot. Want organic go to a farmer's market, and even then it's still 50-50.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I hope there can be some action to preserve the income of the farmers.

The thing I worry about in this is that more little farms get wiped out, putting more food production into the hands of a few big corporations.

Which could be especially bad for the people who like the "organic" foods... I mean, I dont know if there's such thing as free range pork, but if there is and theyre affected by this virus, that whole sector of the market is probably fried to a crisp.


Although, I would almost assume that if a hog was raised in a free range environment, the whole herd would be less susceptible to the virus, due to having more space and open air, etc.

Free range sounds good, but the effect on the land as well as the amount need would be prohibitive.

Ninja'd by the Irishman!

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Those Por Motorcycles.......oh you mean the OTHER type of hogs

I read the title of this thread and immediately wondered, "What wiped out the other 90%?"

The only logical conclusion here is that we must learn how to vat-grow delicious pig meat

 LordofHats wrote:

"organic" foods

The first rule about "organic" foods is that the "organic" part is a lie.

Therefor, anyone who walks into a run of the mill grocery store and wastes money on "organic" foods, is an idiot. Want organic go to a farmer's market, and even then it's still 50-50.

It's a bit of a series of hoops to jump through for organic certification. I have cousins in Maine that have a fair share of the Broccoli market, and they maintain an organic fiield or two. Like you say, there is a lot labled organic that isn't. It reminds me of the 70's when there were foods were touted as being "natural", when a cursory examination of the conditions used to produce them showed a lot of those claims to be lies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification

Go to the local grocery and try and see how many organic certifications are actually on any food packaging The organic certification isn't even difficult to aquire as the 'prohibited' substances is a really really short list.

An example is organic beef, where the regulation doesn't say no hormone injections, but rather specifies a long list of wordy things that basically amount to 50% less hormones.

And that's before we get into the issue that USFDA and USDA regulations, are regularly circumvented by major food producers and shady dealings with on site inspectors. Honey is one of the famous recent examples (hint the only time a bee ever touched it was when it pollinated the corn that became your honey).

The FDA is probably my second most disliked federal agency after the ATF

Let's be fair here, "natural" means absolutely 0 from a legal perspective in the US. As far as the FDA is concerned natural means nothing, so there's no requirements for you to call it that. Apparently organic at least has some regulations attached to it.

That said, I've always felt that the hype around organic foods is usually overrated. As long as we don't get into "the Jungle" levels of food safety here I'm pretty satisfied eating whatever.

There's no significant nutritional difference between intensively farmed and organic food. It comes down to organic perhaps tasting better in some cases, using fewer hormones and antibiotics, and being arguably nicer for the animals (though animals can and do still suffer in organic farming and they are still killed at the end).

There are other side benefits to do with use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides, but they are ecological rather than nutritional, and possibly outweighed by the increased land use.

Edit: And from a scientific standpoint, all food is natural and all food is organic. The terms are horribly misused in marketing. But there's no such thing as inorganic beef!

Am I the only one who sees parralells between super dense pig farms and cities (super dense people farms)?

And hey, organic isnt a lie!

after all, you are consuming organic biomass, not inorganic mass after all... even if it is laced with lots of pesticides ect.

the labeliing system really needs to be more honest and just flat out say something like "we allow _____ amount of poisen/chemicals/XXXX on your food"

or there needs to be a "process" list of all things done to the food, much like we list out all the ingrediants + nutritional factors.

IE this food has been through process A B or C ect, where we can easily reference that online or something.

The thing that's baffling about the nutrition labels is that those two are often lies. Its less about what they're required to put on the label and more about what they're allowed to leave out. The FDA allows a 20% margin of error in the labels, and has no regulatory body established to actually enforce accuracy.

Certain products like Honey, Olive Oil, Peanut Butter, and and packaged spices are among the worst offenders.

 easysauce wrote:
Am I the only one who sees parralells between super dense pig farms and cities (super dense people farms)?

And hey, organic isnt a lie!

after all, you are consuming organic biomass, not inorganic mass after all... even if it is laced with lots of pesticides ect.

the labeliing system really needs to be more honest and just flat out say something like "we allow _____ amount of poisen/chemicals/XXXX on your food"

or there needs to be a "process" list of all things done to the food, much like we list out all the ingrediants + nutritional factors.

IE this food has been through process A B or C ect, where we can easily reference that online or something.

Scientifically speaking, potassium cyanide is organic. The hijacking of the word as a marketing buzzword really bothers me.

The thing that baffles me is the whole concept. I get that a lot of nasty stuff happens with food and we should be worried, but humans in the west have been surviving off food pumped up with pesticides and various chemicals for nearly 130 years.

So far we seem to be doing mostly okay.

EDIT: And I say this even as I pick on the FDA's lack regulations and monitoring of our food supply.

Organic food is a great marketing success. Almost as much of a success as GM food was a failure.