Abstract
Live pig trade patterns, drivers and characteristics, particularly in backyard predominant systems, remain largely unexplored despite their important contribution to the spread of infectious diseases in the swine industry. A better understanding of the pig trade dynamics can inform the implementation of risk-based and more cost-effective prevention and control programs for swine diseases. In this study, a semi-structured questionnaire elaborated by FAO and implemented to 487 farmers was used to collect data regarding basic characteristics about pig demographics and live-pig trade among villages in the country of Georgia, where very scarce information is available. Social network analysis and exponential random graph models were used to better understand the structure, contact patterns and main drivers for pig trade in the country. Results indicate relatively infrequent (a total of 599 shipments in one year) and geographically localized (median Euclidean distance between shipments = 6.08 km; IQR = 0–13.88 km) pig movements in the studied regions. The main factors contributing to live-pig trade movements among villages were being from the same region (i.e., local trade), usage of a middleman or a live animal market to trade live pigs by at least one farmer in the village, and having a large number of pig farmers in the village. The identified villages’ characteristics and structural network properties could be used to inform the design of more cost-effective surveillance systems in a country which pig industry was recently devastated by African swine fever epidemics and where backyard production systems are predominant.
Highlights
Movement of live animals plays an important role in the spread of infectious diseases [1]
The months of March and May registered the highest number of shipments (Fig 1B). These results suggest a local and small pig trade community
The present study is the first to describe and characterize the pig trade structure of four pigrearing regions of Georgia, a country with predominant backyard production systems, for which scarce data is available on pig trade dynamics and whose pig production was recently devastated as consequence of African swine fever (ASF) epidemics
Summary
Movement of live animals plays an important role in the spread of infectious diseases [1]. A better understanding of the live animal movement patterns and the ability to promptly trace them in emergency situations have been recognized as key to prevent, early detect, rapid control and even predict disease outbreaks [2,3,4].
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