The manager of industry and policy analysis with Sask Pork is encouraging any pork producer not yet familiar with new requirements for the mandatory reporting of hog movements in Canada to contact their provincial pork office to get set up in the system.
New requirements for the mandatory reporting of all movements of live hogs within Canada took effect July 1.
Under the new regulations, both the shipper and the receiver must report where hogs were moved from and to, the date they were moved, how many were moved and the license plate number of the vehicle that moved them, to the PigTrace Canada database within seven days.
Mark Ferguson, the manager of industry and policy analysis with the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, says in general the transition has gone very well.
Certainly the commercial producers in Saskatchewan and I think across Canada have been very good at putting their movements in and having their premises registered and doing what they need to do.
I think there’s some farms that maybe only have a few hogs and maybe aren’t as plugged in to their provincial boards and they maybe have some work to do on getting up to speed.
Certainly if this news of movement reporting is something you’ve never heard before please give us a call at Sask Pork or if you’re in a different province one of your provincial offices and we can send you a package with all the information you need and get you set up in PigTrace.
The same thing goes for slaughter plants too.
I know there’s quite a few smaller slaughter plants and maybe they’re not all quite aware of what their responsibilities are now so give us a call and we’d be happy to educate you on the requirements and help you get up to speed.
Ferguson says the transition to mandatory reporting has gone smoothly so far and he applauds the efforts of those producers who have been reporting hog movements and making this traceability system work.
