Provincial pork associations in western Canada are preparing to move to the next phase of the Canadian Truck Wash Facility Registration Pilot Project.
Provincial pork associations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have completed the Canadian Truck Wash Facility Registration Pilot Project and plan to continue the effort with truck wash facilities that have not yet participated.
Harvey Wagner, the manager of producer services with Sask Pork, says the voluntary effort included the development of wash facility and wash process checklists designed to identify strengths and weaknesses to help improve biosecurity.
When we do this checklist we look at how the building is set up, who’s there, the staff, the training, what they’re doing, what they can do, what their disinfectants are, the way the building is situated, how the trucks come in, potential sources of cross contamination.
It’s a couple of hours to go through it and then, after the building, we look at the actual wash procedure and see how the staff are doing that wash procedure, what they do when the truck comes in, how they handle the bedding and the shavings, how they flush it, wash it and disinfect it, and then do an inspection to see if there’s any issues after the inspection, so it’s a complete effort and very detailed.
At the end of it, when we go through it, then there’s a score.
The scoring system is based on critical points.
Some things that are really important carry a pretty high score so if you’re missing some of those critical points your score drops quickly.
If you’re touching all the critical points your score is really good, even if you’re missing a few of the smaller lower risk items.
Wagner notes forms have been developed to document the level of wash and to track the movements of the trucks post wash.
He says the next steps will include completion of internal approvals of the documents and consultations with wash facilities and veterinarians before rolling them out to producers.
