The General Manager of Manitoba Pork says legislation passed in Manitoba will help protect farm families from malicious trespassers, the animals on their farms from exposure to disease, and consumers from the food shortages that would result from a foreign animal disease incursion.
Manitoba’s pork producers are applauding the provincial government’s passage of Bill 62, the Animal Diseases Amendment Act and Bill 63, the Petty Trespasses Amendment and Occupiers’ Liability Amendment Act.
Cam Dahl, the General Manager of Manitoba Pork, says our experience with COVID has demonstrated the importance of biosecurity in containing the spread of disease.
First on the trespass act, it really is about protecting animals and ensuring that the biosecurity measures that farmers have in place are preserved. It helps ensure that we don’t have people coming onto farmyards and coming into barns and really putting animals at risk.
On the other side, the other piece of legislation that is now law, it really helps protect farm families that are living on the farm and the workers that work on the farm from people who might be coming onto their yards and their facilities with ill intent.
And, from a consumer point of view, if you look at what something like African Swine Fever can do, it’s ripping through Asia for example and significantly decreasing the supply of pork and significantly increasing the prices.
There were 10 million pigs that died in China in a year’s span because of African Swine Fever and we’re seeing impacts in countries like the Philippines for example where significant depopulations are happening because of the disease and a significant impact on the price of food for consumers.
So, if we were to experience a foreign animal disease, you would directly see it on your store shelves.
~ Cam Dahl, Manitoba Pork
Dahl says this legislation is protecting farmers and their animals but it’s also protecting consumers and the grocery shelves.
