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More than £2 million has been awarded to scientists at the University of Lincoln, UK, to lead the most comprehensive study of the British pig industry ever conducted.
As part of the Global Food Security (GFS) programme, which examines the resilience of the UK food system in a global context, the project will bring together all existing data with new scientific studies to accurately build an overview of the entire industry.
The academics leading the project will then produce a systems model, which will be used to predict how major economic and environmental changes will affect the industry, from farmer to retailer, and provide the kind of informed advice which has not previously been available to key decision makers.
“At present, we don’t have a continuous, objective and quantified understanding of the health and welfare of our national pig herd, we can’t predict how it will be impacted by future changes to the industry, and we are unable to tell how resilient the UK pig industry is as a whole – through PIGSustain we will address all of these uncertainties. This is a truly cross-disciplinary project, which pushes the boundaries of current scientific and social scientific knowledge in many directions.”
PIGSustain will gather data in order to understand how sustainable intensification and predicted climate changes are expected to impact on the entire pig industry – from the health, disease and welfare of the animals, to consumption patterns and retail prices, which ultimately impact farmers. Gathering information on emerging diseases with the UK pig population is particularly important for the team because, unlike any other animal, it is possible for pigs to translate animal diseases into human forms.
Monday September 5, 2016/ Uniersity of Lincoln/ United Kingdom.
http://www.lincoln.ac.uk
