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Iowa farmer sees remarkable improvements in biosecurity

An Iowa farmer who’s spent most of his life working with hogs says biosecurity has improved immensely.

Larry Sailer of Iowa Falls tells Brownfield so much has changed since he started feeding pigs sixty-five years ago.

“I’ve got pictures of me feeding pigs when I was about two years old. At that time there really wasn’t much talk about biosecurity, and we had most of our livestock outside. Wildlife could get to it, and diseases spread.”

When he retired as a construction supervisor for a large hog company last year, he says the barns featured bio-filters that used air pressure to keep diseases out.

“About the only way you could get a disease into those new barns is if people walk in with it, or if it came in through your breeding stock.”

Sailer says people who enter the barns are locked into an air exchange room before moving on to a shower room.

He stresses these biosecurity measures are critical because foreign animal diseases like African swine fever and Foot and Mouth Disease would cripple the hog industry.