Hog producer income losses under contagious animal disease restrictions

摘要

Eradication measures of a contagious animal disease may force farmers to keep ready-to-slaughter animals on the farm. As feeding heavy animals may reduce carcass quality and farmer income, farmers can adjust their feeding policy in order to decrease losses from delayed slaughter. The problem is interesting also from society's point of view because eradication measures can affect a large number of farms when a single farm is infected. A dynamic programming model is developed to study optimal hog feeding strategies when the timing of slaughter is restricted. The model takes into account carcass quality, its effects on timing of slaughter under given prices, and animal density on the farm. The results show that farmers suffer substantial losses due todelayed slaughter, and can minimize the losses by reducing energy feeding. The results give information on designing compensation schemes so that all farmers have economic incentives to implement preferred eradication policy.