The chair of the Canadian Pork Council’s Animal Care Technical Group says the incorporation of the newly revised Canadian Pig Code of Practice into the Canadian Quality Assurance (CQA) program will provide the opportunity to make added improvements to the program.
The Canadian Pork Council’s Animal Care Technical Group has begun the process of incorporating the newly updated Canadian Pig Code of Practice into the Animal Care Assessment component of the Canadian Quality Assurance program.
The committee is made up of representatives of the Canadian Pork Council, provincial pork producer associations, swine veterinarians, animal welfare researchers and government officials.
Committee chair Dickson Gould says in addition to incorporating the new pig code into CQA, the process will allow for additional improvements intended to benefit pork producers and the animals they care for.
First of all I think we’re going to develop a more streamlined CQA program which includes both food safety and animal welfare, a program that’s not only beneficial to producers but I think will be valuable to customers who buy our pork.
The program is our commitment to the fundamental principles of taking excellent care of the animals that we’re the stewards of and producing safe and high quality food products.
I think the first stream is going to be similar to how the CQA programs worked in the past and then we’re looking at being able to modify it so that it can be run electronically and I think all the producers will be very pleased with that.
Gould says the goal is to have the revisions completed by mid-2015 at which time the updated program will be pilot tested to make sure it’s functional with the idea that it will be broadly released in 2016.
He says the process is not just about assessing code requirements but also developing a tool producers will find helpful that will help the industry gain and maintain access to markets in Canada and globally.
