The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it wants to hear from stakeholders of the U.S. pork industry to help develop objectives for the sixth national swine study -- "Swine 2020" -- to be conducted by USDA's National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS), in collaboration with the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

USDA said input is essential if it is to address the specific needs and information gaps of those involved in swine production and research.

NAHMS provides stakeholders in the private and public sectors with valuable information on disease occurrence, exposure to disease agents, management practices, productivity, knowledge gaps and other important topics of concern to U.S. livestock industries and trading partners.

As with the five previous NAHMS national swine studies, USDA said "Swine 2020" will be national in scope, collaborative in nature and voluntary. Data collected during the study will be strictly confidential and used to generate scientifically based and statistically valid national estimates for education, research and policy development applications.

Results from previous NAHMS national swine studies are available at: www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahms/swine/index.shtml.