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Pork production is a significant agricultural enterprise in the United States and Canada. The United States is the third-largest global producer of pork and Canada ranks seventh in pork production. The North American Free Trade Agreement and its successor, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, have facilitated trade and integration between the two countries. The majority of production systems are modern and intensive, characterized by large vertically integrated farms using advanced technologies. Both nations benefit from their status as major producers of feed grains, with the United States leading in corn and soybeans, while Canada excels in canola and barley production. The regulatory frameworks for food safety, animal welfare, and environmental stewardship differ slightly, with the FDA and USDA overseeing these aspects in the United States, and Health Canada and the Canada Food Inspection Agency in Canada. The United States and Canada also have well-established distribution networks for pork products, relying on both domestic and international markets. Export markets play a crucial role, with the United States being a major importer of Canadian pigs, and both countries exploring opportunities in Asia. Despite a rise in global demand, domestic pork consumption trends differ, with per capita consumption remaining stable in the USA and declining in Canada. Changing consumer preferences, including a demand for ethically raised and locally sourced pork, may influence production practices. Future trends in pig production include a focus on consumer concerns, sustainability, disease prevention, reduction of antimicrobial use, and advancements in technology. The industry is adapting to challenges such as disease outbreaks and changing regulations, with a strong emphasis on animal welfare. Labor and workforce considerations, along with advancements in technology and automation, are expected to shape the efficiency of pork production in the future.

Marbling characteristics are important traits for the genetic improvement of pork quality. Accurate marbling segmentation is the prerequisite for the quantification of these traits. However, the marbling targets are small and thin with dissimilar sizes and shapes and scattered in pork, complicating the segmentation task. Here, we proposed a deep learning-based pipeline, a shallow context encoder network (Marbling-Net) with the usage of patch-based training strategy and image up-sampling to accurately segment marbling regions from images of pork longissimus dorsi (LD) collected by smartphones. A total of 173 images of pork LD were acquired from different pigs and released as a pixel-wise annotation marbling dataset, the pork marbling dataset 2023 (PMD2023). The proposed pipeline achieved an IoU of 76.8%, a precision of 87.8%, a recall of 86.0%, and an F1-score of 86.9% on PMD2023, outperforming the state-of-art counterparts. The marbling ratios in 100 images of pork LD are highly correlated with marbling scores and intramuscular fat content measured by the spectrometer method (R2 = 0.884 and 0.733, respectively), demonstrating the reliability of our method. The trained model could be deployed in mobile platforms to accurately quantify pork marbling characteristics, benefiting the pork quality breeding and meat industry.

Pork accounts for more than one-third of meat produced worldwide and is an important component of global food security, agricultural economies, and trade. Infectious diseases are among the primary constraints to swine production, and the globalization of the swine industry has contributed to the emergence and spread of pathogens. Despite the importance of infectious diseases to animal health and the stability and productivity of the global swine industry, pathogens of swine have never been reviewed at a global scale. Here, we build a holistic global picture of research on swine pathogens to enhance preparedness and understand patterns of emergence and spread. By conducting a scoping review of more than 57,000 publications across 50 years, we identify priority pathogens globally and regionally, and characterize geographic and temporal trends in research priorities. Of the 40 identified pathogens, publication rates for eight pathogens increased faster than overall trends, suggesting that these pathogens may be emerging or constitute an increasing threat. We also compared regional patterns of pathogen prioritization in the context of policy differences, history of outbreaks, and differing swine health challenges faced in regions where swine production has become more industrialized. We documented a general increasing trend in importance of zoonotic pathogens and show that structural changes in the industry related to intensive swine production shift pathogen prioritization. Multinational collaboration networks were strongly shaped by region, colonial ties, and pig trade networks. This review represents the most comprehensive overview of research on swine infectious diseases to date.

The price of pork, as an important livelihood indicator in China, and its price fluctuations have a significant impact on the lives of residents and social stability. Therefore, it is vital to study the main factors that affect pork price fluctuations and implement targeted regulatory measures in a timely manner. In the context of the increasing number of pig epidemics and increased pork imports, it is necessary to consider the impact of pig epidemics and imported pork on pork price fluctuations, which can more accurately reflect actual pork price fluctuations in China. In this paper, a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model was applied to analyze the main factors affecting pork price fluctuations from the aspects of the pork price, supply and demand changes, and pig epidemic shocks. The results indicated that the impact of the pork price on pork price fluctuations was the largest, with the largest contribution rate, whereas the current month’s pork price had a 29.60% impact on the pork price 18 months later. The supply factor that affected the pork price was the pig herd, with the current month’s pig herd having a 34.85% impact on the pork price after 18 months. Imported pork had a relatively small structural impact on pork price fluctuations, with a positive impact in the first four months and a subsequent negative impact. However, pig epidemics mainly caused pork price fluctuations by changing the market relation between demand and supply, with the current month’s epidemic depth index having a 9.78% impact on the pork price 18 months later. Based on the results of this study, it is recommended to focus on the monitoring and early warning of the pork price by analyzing big data, promoting large-scale farming, and strengthening the implementation of early prevention and control measures during disease outbreaks to stabilize pig herd and achieve a stable pork market supply and price.

Sausages are the most popular and widely manufactured meat products in Ukraine and pork is a typical raw material used for the purpose. However, there is a deficiency of pork and meat processors have to operate with all the raw meats available and often originated from the animals of different types and breeds. These are characterized by different technological properties which prevents from manufacturing sausages of the constant quality. So it is necessary to provide with the relevant information on the content and properties of different types of pork used in practice. The goal was to study physical, chemical, functional and technological properties of lean, semi-fatty and fatty trimmed pork obtained by boning and trimming half-carcasses of meat, meat-and-lard and lard breed pigs. It is determined in the course of quintuplicate experiments that trimmed meat obtained from meat breed pigs contains 13 % by weight less fatty tissue than trimmed meat from meat-and-lard pigs and 46 % by weight less than trimmed meat from lard breed pigs. It is determined that the fat tissue content in lean pork is within the range from 6.44 % to 15.08 % by weight, in semi-fatty pork – from 27.67 % to 50.96 % by weight, in fatty pork – from 58.32 % to 68.91 % by weight. The values of the criteria for assessing the functional and technological properties are determined: water to protein, fat to protein, water to fat ratios, water-binding capacity in different grades of minced trimmed meat. It is established that the optimum values of water-binding capacity with simultaneous growth of fat and water absorption are characteristic of semi-fatty pork with a fat content of  27.67 % – 34.73 % by weight, which corresponds to a fat-to-protein ratio of 2.0 – 2.5. The research fulfilled makes possible to determine the main criteria for assessing the functional and technological properties of trimmed meat, and their influence on the ability of trimmed meat of different grades to bind and retain water and fat, and to create stable meat emulsions. It facilitates the use different types and breeds of pork to guarantee the quality characteristics of the sausages being manufactured.

A total of 514 raw pork samples (395 ground or nonintact and 119 intact samples) were purchased at retail stores in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey between July and December 2017. All raw pork samples were screened for serogroup O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, O145, or O157:H7 cells of Shiga toxin-producing (STEC-7) using standard microbiological and molecular methods. In short, 21 (5.3%) of the 395 ground or nonintact pork samples and 3 (3.4%) of the 119 intact pork samples tested positive via the BAX system real-time PCR assay for the and virulence genes and for the somatic O antigens for at least one of the STEC-7 serogroups. However, none of these 24 presumptive-positive pork samples subsequently yielded a viable isolate of STEC displaying a STEC-7 serogroup-specific surface antigen in combination with the and genes. These data suggest that cells of STEC serogroups O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, O145, or O157:H7 are not common in retail raw pork samples in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

Mulberry ( Morus alba L .), and above all the extract from the leaves of this plant, is a natural medicine that has been used in traditional medicine for hundreds of years. Mulberry leaves contains polyphenol compounds: flavonoids, coumarins, numerous phenolic acids, as well as terpenes and steroids. The antioxidant effect of these compounds may be beneficial to the fat fraction of meat products, thereby increasing their functional qualities. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of mulberry water leaf extract, as an additive limiting adverse fat changes and affecting the functionality in model liver pâtés. Pork pâtés were prepared by replacing 20% of animal fat with rapeseed oil (RO), and water extract of mulberry leaves was added in the proportion of 0.2%, 0.6% and 1.0%. It has been shown that the addition of mulberry leaf extract delayed the appearance of primary and secondary fat oxidation products. The most effective antioxidant effect during 15-day storage was observed in the sample with the addition of 0.6% and 1.0% water mulberry leaf extract. These samples also showed inhibiting activity against angiotensin-converting enzymes and cholinesterase’s. During storage, the tested pâtés had a high sensory quality with unchanged microbiological quality. Mulberry leaf extract can be an interesting addition to the production of fat meat products, delaying adverse changes in the lipid fraction and increasing the functionality of products.

Reports of Salmonella enterica I serotype 4,[5],12:i:- infections resistant to ampicillin, streptomycin, sulphamethoxazole, and tetracycline (ASSuT) have been increasing. We analyzed data from 5 national surveillance systems to describe the epidemiology, resistance traits, and genetics of infections with this Salmonella strain in the United States. We found ASSuT-resistant Salmonella 4,[5],12:i:- increased from 1.1% of Salmonella infections during 2009-2013 to 2.6% during 2014-2018; the proportion of Salmonella 4,[5],12:i:- isolates without this resistance pattern declined from 3.1% to 2.4% during the same timeframe. Among isolates sequenced during 2015-2018, a total of 69% were in the same phylogenetic clade. Within that clade, 77% of isolates had genetic determinants of ASSuT resistance, and 16% had genetic determinants of decreased susceptibility to ciprofloxacin, ceftriaxone, or azithromycin. Among outbreaks related to the multidrug-resistant clade, 63% were associated with pork consumption or contact with swine. Preventing Salmonella 4,[5],12:i:- carriage in swine would likely avert human infections with this strain.

This project aims to establish the acceptability and satiety of a hybrid snack containing plant protein and a small percentage of animal protein compared to a meat-based snack. Design: Randomised, crossover, double-blind, controlled post-prandial trial involving 24 participants (18–30 years), with two interventions: (a) a hybrid snack containing plant protein derived from chickpeas and 6.6% lean high-quality pork meat; and (b) a meat-based snack containing 90% lean pork meat. Methods: General, life-style, sensory acceptability questionnaire, and the following laboratory analyses were performed: lipid profile, endocannabinoids, and related compounds. Results: Sensory questionnaires showed in general good acceptability for both bars. Additionally, there was a greater increase in glycemia at 30, 60, and 90 min after consuming the hybrid snack compared to the meat-based snack, with no changes in the lipid profile. Regarding the endocannabinoid compounds and related compounds, the compound N-palmitoleoyl ethanolamine in the acylethanolamide group showed higher levels overall following the consumption of the hybrid snack compared to the meat-based snack, particularly at 2 h. Conclusions: The hybrid snack was associated with changes in endocannabinoid-like compounds. Therefore, it may provide a lasting satiating effect, while complementing the protein profile of plant-based foods with the quality of animal protein.