I think, sometimes, when consumers first hear about hurdles that face the agriculture industry they tend to think there’s nothing being done to address those hurdles. Rather than viewing how things are done now as a snapshot, a moment in time in a rapidly evolving industry that just so happens to feed the world, they see it as a concrete standard operating procedure, the way things are, the way they’ve been, and the way they’re going to be. Because the tomato always looks the same when it arrives on their plate, it can be difficult to imagine how vastly the processes behind getting them there has changed over the years.
The truth, of course, is that innovation is always happening behind the scenes — farmers and ag professionals are already aware of and working towards solutions to the hurdles that we face before they ever become newspaper headlines and evening news hooks — but because that innovation can take time, we’re not always ready to implement a new tool or technique immediately after an issue becomes front page news. And trust me, that’s often far more frustrating to us than you might imagine. In an ideal world, we’d all have solutions to the problems that plague us in our work immediately, in the real world patience has become a virtue by necessity.
Which brings me to Improvest and pig testicles. Because I’m all about the classy segways.
I’ve written about castration before, so I won’t bore you with the long, drawn out explanations here — though if you’ve not read it before, I would highly recommend you click that link before continuing — but I will give you a quick recap before we go on:
Why Pigs Are Castrated
- Two compounds routinely produced by mature male pigs, androstenone and skatole, can impart an off scent and flavor to their meat. This is commonly referred to as “Boar Taint”.
- Mature male pigs can be bothersome to their pen and pasture mates, creating a stressful environment.
- Mature male pigs can be dangerous to one another and their pen and pasture mates.
- Mature male pigs can be dangerous to human handlers.
How Pigs Are Castrated
- Done as early as possible, usually within the first couple weeks of life, the testicles are surgically removed from the scrotum via two small incisions.
So what is Improvest and what does it have to do with any of that, you ask? Improvest is an injectable protein compound that may completely revolutionize the how part of pig castration. Instead of cutting, in as little as a year from now, hog producers may be injecting. The biggest questions that face them now: cost and consumer perception.
Though American consumers have occasionally voiced concern over surgical castration of young male pigs, it’s pretty consistently rated below other welfare concerns such as gestation crates. Meanwhile, they’ve become increasingly wary of any compounds that can be fed or injected. The question over how happily they’ll embrace Improvest remains to be seen, though proactive education certainly has the potential to make any transitions easier.
So What Is Improvest?
- A Protein Compound that temporarily blocks the compounds that taint pork.
- An Immunocological Product that works like a vaccine.
- A subcutaneous injection.
What Improvest is NOT
- A Horomone.
- Genetically Modified
- Permanent, Chemical Castration
- A Growth Promotant.
- An antibiotic.
Approved in sixty other countries (including the European Union, Japan, and Australia) Improvest has been in use in some of those countries for more than a decade. It is an injectable, protein compound that works like a vaccine to activate the pig’s natural immune response and temporarily block the release of the two compounds — androstenone and skatole — that cause boar taint in the pork products of mature male pigs. In fact, it’s method of delivery is the same Diphtheria toxoid vaccine that has been used in the vaccination of human children since the 1930s. And it leaves no residue in meat products.
As a farmer, I’ve been watching the developments of Improvest closely; castration has always been among my least favorite jobs and I’d be delighted to have a less invasive method of accomplishing a necessary task. But I also realize those two Cs, cost and consumer perception, will heavily dictate whether or not Improvest becomes a viable option on our farm.
By the time it’s rolled out to the swine industry here in the U.S. — expected beginning December 2013 — it will have been approved for use by the FDA for over two years. For small farms like ours mid 2014 would probably be a more realistic estimate of availability. Currently, cost of implementation stands between $4 and $5 per pig, which equals as much as thirty times* what it currently costs us to castrate using the surgical technique.
My question to you as consumers: with the information I’ve provided you about Improvest, would you prefer pork from pigs who have been surgically castrated or those who have received Improvest? If you would prefer Improvest pigs, would you be willing to pay a few cents more for your pork to offset costs of implementation?
*It’s possible gains in efficiency will offset this cost increase, but because all research is done on farms who have different infrastructure and different hogs than us we will have to determine that for ourselves in order to be certain.
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Jeannine January 16, 2013 at 3:25 pm
Fascinating! I’m totally serious. First off, I’m happy to see this less invasive alternative to castration. But I do have a few questions. The injection ‘temporarily blocks’ the compounds that taint pork. Is temporary not a concern because of the time between injection and — not sure of correct terminology here but you know, sayonara? Knowing the facts about Improvest (specifically that it is a protein compound and NOT a hormone) I would be ok with purchasing pork that has been injected. But I understand it’s hard for small farms to take on the extra expense and I would be willing to pay a few cents extra. Knowing that over 60 countries have approved this and are using this method actually makes me more willing to purchase this pork.
Diana January 16, 2013 at 3:44 pm
Great question! You’ve got it.
The suppressive anti-body that is triggered by the injection lasts in the pig’s system at adequate levels to suppress the compounds that produce taint for about 8 weeks. The pig can be harvested as much as 10 weeks post injection without risk of taint.
For most farms the pigs would be first injected with a primer dose at about 9 weeks of age, this would get their immune system ready to respond appropriately upon the second dose. (Kind of like when we humans receive vaccination in series, it’s the same concept.) They’d then be injected with a secondary dose about a month later, the taint-causing compounds are then suppressed for 10 weeks and they are ready for harvest in that time period.
Because our pigs grow a little slower than most hogs, we’d simply be administering the injection later to time it appropriately with our harvest schedules.
Kathy January 16, 2013 at 5:23 pm
I am astounded at the dollar figures at the end there! Do you really mean that you can surgically castrate a pig for around 15 CENTS each?!? I struggle to conceive how that is possible. Is there some kind of assembly line process? I just can’t imagine how this can be mass produced to get the costs that low.
Also, does this procedure help with the other reasons for castration – namely the aggression?
Diana January 16, 2013 at 5:59 pm
It’s not so much the process that makes castration so cheap as the fact that it just takes very little, and very inexpensive equipment. All that’s needed is a flat surface, a scalpel, and some iodine. Scalpels cost around $0.30 each and we can castrate 3-5 pigs per scalpel before they begin to dull. A gallon of iodine costs about $17 and lasts through hundreds upon hundreds of castrations.
The price point would not necessarily need to be that low in order to make Improvest feasible for small farms like ours. Even the $5 per pig price point is not prohibitive, especially if we were to see gains in efficiency like they’ve seen on conventional hog farms. (In established tests and uses over seas they’ve actually seen an average increase in profit margin for farms using Improvest, because intact males naturally tend to grow faster than castrated males.) The problem is that $5 price point is based on much larger farms than ours, who are able to buy the product in bulk. There have been no public estimates of what it might costs for smaller farms, so that will remain to be seen, but there is a very good possibility small operations like ours would come out in the red on it. Even then, if that negative margin is small enough it could remain worth it.
Also, aside from the price of the product itself, needles and syringes are more costly than scalpels (and needles cannot be used more than once like blades) so you have a per pig increase there. Plus, there is required training and a tracking program to use the product both of which would be added cost.
The tracking program is specifically designed to deal with your last question, it will be used by farmers to track individual pigs and assess any issues with aggression or other boar-like behavior. It’s my understanding that at this time all of that has also been effectively reduced. Because our pig are older than standard market hogs when they go to market they are also more mature, so that is something we would definitely have to assess on-farm here.
Kathy January 16, 2013 at 6:18 pm
I guess I was assuming some form of manpower cost was included in those numbers. I would assume castration takes at least several minutes per pig (though that is a pretty big W.A.G.), where the injection should be very quick. I can see that the material costs for the castration would be very cheap.
Is there no data on how the costs have worked out for small farms like yours in Europe, etc.? If it has been in use for several years there I’d imagine it has been tried by some small producers. I’m sure the material costs, etc. are different, but that should still give you some idea.
All that being said, I would certainly be open to buying pork made this way and even paying a small amount more. I think the biggest issue will be educating the public (like you have done here). You need a catchy name for this (like “free-range”) that makes people aware of the pluses without making them dwell on castration. I don’t think you want “castration” to be the first thing people think of when they think of your product
Diana January 16, 2013 at 7:01 pm
You know what, Kathy, I need to go back and look to see if the $5.00/pig included labor or not. I seem to be remembering as just the equipment and cost of the injectable itself, but it may very well include labor. As far as which would be quicker, the injection would probably be slightly quicker, but it doesn’t take long to castrate at all so I believe the difference would be incremental. It takes longer to catch and restrain them than it does to do the actual surgery. And they would still have to be caught and restrained for the injections. In fact, because Improvest is given as a two-shot series they’d have to be caught and restrained twice, rather than just the once as with castration.
We figure only about $0.30-0.50 of labor per pig for both castration and worming (which is done at the same time.)
As you can see, even if the $5.00 includes labor for both injections, it would still be around ten times as expensive, though that certainly is better than thirty.
Unfortunately, lack of data is a continual struggle for small farms like ours – especially small livestock producers. We’re not the target market for things like this so the companies tend not to put any resources towards proving their product for our circumstances. When the big pork producers are farrowing 4800 pigs per week and we’re turning out a couple hundred per year, it’s hard to claw your way up the priority totem pole. Likewise, third party researchers are often focused on the areas where there is the biggest impact. (And while I’d love more data that is immediately applicable to our situation, I can’t say as though I blame them.)
The other issue we’ve run into is that very small farms tend to be slower to adopt new technologies and when they do record keeping is not always as thorough as it could be, making depending on other farms for their direct data tricky.
Tom Tibbits January 16, 2013 at 7:10 pm
I think it’s an idea that has quite a bit of merit particularly for small farms that direct market or market through a cooperative that sells specialty meat, pasture based or dirt lot heirloom …
Diana January 16, 2013 at 7:17 pm
Tom, I agree with you… as long as consumer perception remains positive and the price point is do-able. I think the other road bump to getting small farms to adopt the technology will be the training and tracking. The really small, niche farms tend to balk at tracking of any kind, so it may be too big a leap. Time will tell…