The impact of COVID-19 and Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea on Manitoba’s pork sector has prompted the creation of a working to group to look for possible solutions.
In response to the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the cycle of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea outbreaks, Manitoba Pork has established a value-chain working group to answer the question, what do we need to do differently to deal with disease and potentially help prevent the next pandemic.
Cam Dahl, the General Manager of Manitoba Pork, says disease control and prevention is a priority.
The understanding of the need for very strong biosecurity measures has really dramatically increased in the last five years in the pork sector. There isn’t a pork producer that I talk to that isn’t aware of the need to have really strict biosecurity measures in their operations.
Most people I talk to are surprised when you tell them that you need to shower when you go into a pork barn, not necessarily when you come out. That awareness has come about because of outbreaks like PED and producers taking the steps to keep it out of their herds but it’s also come about because of outside threats like African Swine Fever and looking at the damage that diseases like that have done in other countries and the cost. There’s a real recognition that we need to take those steps to keep diseases out and to control them if they do arrive.
I think COVID-19 has brought the awareness of biosecurity to the general public. Social distancing and tracking and tracing our contacts if we become sick and taking measures like masks, those are all biosecurity measures so the awareness has come about in the public as well because of COVID-19 and that’s a good thing.
~ Cam Dahl, Manitoba Pork
Dahl says the goal of the value chain working group is to come up with practical solutions that all of the industry can embrace. He hopes the working group will be in a position to start communicating findings by late spring or early summer.
