Multivariate analysis of management and biosecurity practices in smallholder pig farms in Madagascar

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was carried out in 2005 and 2006 in three geographical areas of Madagascar to investigate and differentiate swine farm management and biosecurity practices in smallholder farming communities. Questionnaire data from a total of 709 pig farms were analysed using multiple factor analysis (MFA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). Variables describing management and biosecurity practices were organised into five groups: structure of the farm, animal-contacts, person- and vehicle-contacts, feeding, and sanitary aspects. In general, few biosecurity measures were implemented in the pig farms included in the study. Regional differences in management and biosecurity practices emerged from the MFA and were mainly due to, in order of decreasing importance: structure of the farm, sanitary aspects, feeding and animal-contacts and, to a lesser extent, person- and vehicle-contacts. HCA resulted in the differentiation of four distinct types of farms in each of two study areas, Arivonimamo and Marovoay, while no grouping could be identified amongst farms in Ambatondrazaka area. The characterisation of the different types of smallholder pig farms will allow adapting recommendations on husbandry practices and control measures in pig farms of these regions of Madagascar. The development of tailored recommendations is essential for Malagasy smallholders who have limited resources and need to make evidence-based management changes to reduce the risk of contagious diseases in their herds.

Risk factors for farm-level African swine fever infection in major pig-producing areas in Nigeria, 1997–2011

“…This is related directly to a local spread between and within pig farms and may occur through direct pig-to-pig contact, especially in scavenging populations, by spreading through formites, and possibly by tick vectors (although no tick vector has been associated with ASF in Nigeria to date). Mannelli et al (1997) and Costard et al (2009a) have similarly reported that free-range pigs and local pig movement were associated with the spread of ASF in previous studies. Effort must therefore be made to reduce the networks, connectivity and neighbourhood-mediated spread of ASF (Rivas et al, 2010;Firestone et al, 2011).…”

Multivariate analysis of traditional pig management practices and their potential impact on the spread of infectious diseases in Corsica

“…While several authors have investigated biosecurity and management practices in industrial pig farms (Hurnik et al, 1994;Boklund et al, 2004;Casal et al, 2007;Ribbens et al, 2008), few data are available on traditional production systems, and they mainly come from non-European countries (Costard et al, 2009;Alawneh et al, 2014) or are based on the observation of a limited sample of farms (Albarella et al, 2007;Hadjikoumis, 2012). The data collected for the present study came from almost a quarter of Corsican registered pig farms, most of whose owners practice extensive pig production.…”

“…A given factor is therefore a linear combination of the variables and is characterised by its eigenvalues, which indicate the variance of the data it represents. The first factor is the projection which represents the highest amount of variance, and each other factor is defined so that it captures the variance not explained by the previous factor (Costard et al, 2009). …”

Assessing biosecurity practices, movements and densities of poultry sites across Belgium, resulting in different farm risk-groups for infectious disease introduction and spread

“…There are several papers which have used multivariate analyses to classify livestock farms (Calavas et al, 1998;Solano et al, 2000;Rose and Madec, 2002;Köbrich et al, 2003;Kristensen, 2003;Boklund et al, 2004;Milán et al, 2006;Ribbens et al, 2008;Costard et al, 2009). However, to the author's knowledge no paper has classified different poultry production systems according to their biosecurity practices.…”