Health and economics in pig production

Abstract

The role of disease on production cost and farmer’s income is widely evoked in the veterinary literature. Most of the authors agree with such a relation but their opinions are rather diverging when estimating the financial impact. At the farm level, for well-defined diseases running for a welldefined period of time, the calculation is rather easy.These are mainly acute outbreaks leading to mortality. In the case of endemic troubles, the calculation is more complex. The limit between disease "per se" and performance inefficiencies is difficult to define but both must be considered in terms of financial income. Moreover, accurate health indicators are needed. Different ways aiming to assess the cost of diseases in pigs are presented in this paper and a few examples are given. Attention is drawn to the economic analysis and on the usefulness of integrating health criteria in monitoring programs.