NCERA_OLD089: Swine Management Research Committee
Statement of Issues and Justification
Pork production systems continue to evolve in the U.S. as they have for over three decades. Evolution in the swine industry is driven by the development, evaluation, and implementation of new technologies. The progression from development to implementation of a new technology cannot be completed without the middle step, evaluation. New technologies can be evaluated in various ways by many different entities within the swine industry. Large, coordinated pork production systems can evaluate a technology within their production system and determine whether the technology is valuable. Typically, results of their evaluation are not public information. Feed companies, genetic companies and equipment manufacturers can evaluate management practices and technologies on their clients' farms but the results may be viewed as biased because the company may have a financial interest in the technology. Independent pork producers can evaluate a technology on their individual farm(s) but often do not have the equipment and usually do not possess the expertise to conduct a scientifically valid study.The scenarios listed above create a need for objective, unbiased evaluation of new technologies and management practices. The NCR-89 Research Committee is uniquely suited to conduct these evaluations. The breadth and wealth of swine management experience brought to the committee by its members are the base of valid, scientific evaluations of management practices being considered in the swine industry. The NCR-89 Committee includes nutritionists, geneticists, engineers, a reproductive physiologist, and an ethologist. The variety of disciplines and viewpoints of the committee members allows thorough understanding of complex production issues. Cooperative, coordinated research among experiment stations permits evaluation of technologies in different research units located in various parts of the central U.S.
The NCR-89 Swine Management Research Committee has a long history of conducting cooperative, coordinated research and reporting the results of that research to stakeholder groups. This continuum of generating and disseminating research results is evidenced by the respectable number of publications for a large committee aimed at scientific audiences, producer groups, and agriculturally-minded educators (see below). In addition to conducting and reporting original research, the NCR-89 Committee provides a forum for scientists interested in swine management issues to gather for an informal exchange of ideas. In the NCR-89 Committee, this exchange usually occurs in an informal setting that is fraught with questions about new concepts, challenges to underlying assumptions, and science-based defense of conclusions. All this happens in an enjoyable, thought-provoking manner that stimulates committee members and fosters cooperation among stations.
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