Speaking to Sarah Mikesell, reporting for ThePigSite at the American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV) annual conference, Dr Harding recommended veterinarians should work with producers to evaluate existing protocols that might have been going for the past 8 or 10 years but have not been reviewed for operation and production efficiency recently.

For example, it is looking at vaccine and/or biosecurity protocols that might not be adding the most value to an individual operation. The goal is to use your employees, staff and resources to their full potential to maximise return on investment.

"In this low-margin time where markets and pig prices are today, it's ever important for our producers to really look at the whole group of pigs and what their goal is with end of production to maximize your existing resources and be as efficient as possible to maximize your return on investment," said Dr Harding.

In other news, Genesus has produced its first ever hog market report for South East Asia. Reporting for Genesus, Paul Anderson General Manager South East Asia, explained that pig production in Vietnam is developing and prices are stable.

In Thailand, production has been affected by a Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak. The outbreak has resulted in a pig price rise - April pig prices were around 78 Thai baht/kg.

Taiwan has a growing number of large scale farmers who now control almost 70 per cent of the market. Total pig numbers have not changed much in the last 10 years and live pigs are sold at around 2.2 US$/kg.