This story was published in the Jan. 20, 1961, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.

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Only uncontrolled disease can deter the rise of a booming swine industry in the Pacific Northwest, Dr. Roy E. Hostetler of Washington State University at Pullman said last night.

The extension animal health specialist spoke to about 50 members of the Twin Rivers Swine Ass’n at a dinner meeting at Moose Hall.

Washington and other states in the Northwest have been swine importing areas, not major producers.

But there’s an abundance of feed and “everything’s right for the Pacific Northwest to become a leading swine producing area,” Hostetler said.

He cited diseases as the major deterrent.

The basis of controlling any swine disease is sanitation, Hostetler noted, “But sanitation is like sin. Everybody’s against it, but doesn’t do anything about it,’ he said.

Effect on the pocketbook is the only way producers eventually realize the significance of good sanitation practices, he said.

Hostetler said Canada — which is experiencing its first major outbreak of hog cholera in years — will probably stop importing swine products from the United States, where cholera is the plague of the industry. The customers’ fear of trichinosis hurts the U.S. market too, he noted.

He complimented Canada’s method of simply destroying all cholera diseased hogs as an economically sound method of eradicating the disease.

It’s far cheaper than, vaccination, practiced by producers in this country, Hostetler said.