@article{Sinnett:333930,
      recid = {333930},
      author = {Sinnett, Alex and Dunshea, Frank and D’Souza, Darryl and  Malcolm, Bill and Griffith, Garry},
      title = {A Benefit Cost Analysis of Entire Male Pig  Immuno-castration},
      journal = {AFBM Journal},
      address = {2022-12-23},
      number = {1672-2023-773},
      month = {Dec},
      year = {2022},
      abstract = {Consumers of fresh pork have long been aware of the risk  of their pork purchases not meeting eating expectations due  to unpleasant taste or smell or other unsatisfactory  quality characteristics such as a lack of tenderness. Boar  taint, or the risk of it, is one of the most important  factors identified in surveys of consumers of pork as being  responsible for having a poor eating experience.  Immuno-castration (IC) of entire male pigs is one method of  reducing boar taint in pork. Currently about 60 per cent of  male pork produced in Australia is immune-castrated. The  question asked here is whether it would be profitable for  the industry if the remaining male slaughter pigs were  immuno-castrated as well. The additional costs associated  with IC include the costs of the vaccine, extra labour  costs, and additional costs arising from abscesses at the  injection site causing increased product downgrades and  stoppages of the slaughter line for cleaning.  A major  benefit of IC for the pig industry is a reduction in  consumers of pork enduring poor experiences from unpleasant  taste or smell when they eat pork. Over time, reducing the  occurrence, and the risk of occurrence, of having a less  than satisfactory experience when consuming pork has the  potential benefit of the industry avoiding losing  customers, and even increasing demand for pork, above what  it would be with the continuation of the current proportion  of boar-tainted pork in the total national supply of pork.  Over the next ten years, if national consumption of pork  increases at the same trend of the past decade, the  benefits from avoided annual losses of demand or from  increases in demand by just 0.5 per cent of total annual  national consumption of pork would cover the cost of the  remainder of the industry adopting IC. This conclusion  applies if IC was adopted fully and immediately and the  cost was the lower of the range of possible cost estimates  at $0.10/kg carcass weight. More realistically, if  producers adopted IC more slowly and adoption of IC took  five years, and the cost of using IC was $0.10/kg carcass  weight, then avoiding or preventing a loss of 1.5 per cent  in annual sales would mean the total benefits exceed the  total costs of achieving this outcome. Such relatively  small gains in sales or avoided losses of sales seem  eminently achievable. The conclusion of the BCA is that an  increased use of immuno-castration in Australia’s pig  production system that reduces the prevalence and the risk  of boar taint would have a high likelihood of delivering a  net benefit to participants in the industry.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/333930},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.333930},
}