91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn

Fatal Swine Disease Could Strike NC Hog Industry

Bob Nichols, USDA NRCS

A fatal swine disease is striking the nation's hog industry. Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus or PED is usually deadly for baby pigs. Its symptoms resemble dysentery, and it's spread through bodily secretions. Tom Ray, director of Livestock Health Programs for the state department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, says so far, there have been only four confirmed cases in North Carolina. He expects the impact for farmers and the state's economy to be significant.

"We provide baby pigs on a regular basis -- like 10 to 15,000 a day -- to about 17 other different states," Ray says. "So if this becomes really widespread, you're going to have fewer baby pigs, fewer big pigs eventually, less bacon, supply and demand thing and there you go."

North Carolina has more than nine million pigs, with nearly 2,500 hog farms bringing in more than $3 billion in sales each year.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Fed up with the frigid winters of her native state, Catherine was lured to North Carolina in 2006. She grew up in Wisconsin where she spent much of her time making music and telling stories. Prior to joining WUNC, Catherine hosted All Things Considered and classical music at Wisconsin Public Radio. She got her start hosting late-nights and producing current events talk shows for the station's Ideas Network. She later became a fill-in talk show host and recorded books for WPR's popular daily program, Chapter A Day.
Related Stories
  1. N.C. Hog Farm Neighbors File Nuisance Complaints
  2. Smithfield Workers Protest
  3. Smithfield Foods Goes 'Hog Wild' Over Shuanghui Merger
  4. Connecting Hog Farms To Pipelines Could Streamline Methane Gas Energy
  5. Salmonella Outbreak Sickens 82
More Stories
  1. During Parkinson’s Awareness Month, a free ECU program seeks to slow the disease’s progress
  2. Early detection of Parkinson’s disease may be a blood draw away
  3. Study: NC chiggers with bacterium that causes disease not previously seen in US
  4. UNC study links gastrointestinal illnesses to hog farms
  5. Feral hog control: 8 years, some progress, $2.5B damage/year