Friday, April 25, 2025

What you may not know is the reason — for the past year pig farms across North America have been battling an outbreak of a virus that has been so devastating to the pig population that it has shifted the market. We take a look inside an Ontario farm to show us how farmers are fighting back.

These piglets appear to be thriving. They feed, and they play, but they’re vulnerable to a deadly virus that has farmers worried.

Doug Ahrens: “I cross my fingers when I walk in the barn in the morning and everybody gets up to greet me.”

That’s because Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea or PED killed over 5 million piglets in North America last year. Humans are immune, and pork that hits your store shelves is safe to eat, but in a barn, PED is devastating. It affects the sow and is fatal for all of her piglets.

Doug: “If we were to get it, we would probably lose everything that was born for 3 to 6 weeks.”

The virus originally came from China. It hit the United States hard last fall and eventually making its way to Canada, primarily in Ontario. It is spread through contaminated feces that could be on the shoes or clothes of someone who is visiting. That’s why, farmers have adopted strict bio-security measures, meaning anyone who wants to get in the barn has to be clean.

For us that meant that first our camera had to be disinfected, and then our boots have to go through 2 chlorine footbaths and then come off.

So once the boots come off the threat doesn’t end there. The area we are now in is known as the dirty room where they try to filter out any contaminants which can come from the outside that means all of your clothes come off and you have to take a shower.

Then you put on coveralls, and a different set of boots before being deemed secure. It may seem excessive, but experts say it’s the only way, and it is working.

Martin Misener: “We’re faced with an epidemic and we have an opportunity from, to prevent it from becoming endemic.”

Veterinarian Martin Misener has been involved in the attempts to limit this disease. Misener says that these measures have helped manage the virus in Ontario, limiting the outbreak to just 2 percent of farms compared to the United States where 50 percent of farms have been affected. But another challenge is on the way: “Winter is coming.”

PED thrives in cold weather, so while they are managing this outbreak so far, there is still a lot of work to be done before Doug Ahrens can breathe a sigh of relief.

We mentioned off the top that this has affected the price of pork. The virus took roughly 10% of the pig population in the U.S. last winter which has caused the price of pork to skyrocket.

Here is an example: In 2012, the average price of a hog on the open market was $147 dollars. Last year it went up to $173 dollars, and it is currently at $222 dollars per hog. Then end result is that pork has risen 15% at the grocery store.

The flip side for farmers, they are making money. Doug Ahrens said that they had been selling at a loss for the past number of years, and right now he is making that money back, which even allows him to invest in greater security at his farm.

They are optimistic that this virus will be beaten and that prices will stabilize within the next year and a half.