The chair of the Banff Pork Seminar Organizing Committee says a growing number attendees are using the annual event as an opportunity to gather for meetings outside of the conference.
The 2016 Banff Pork Seminar kicked off yesterday and runs today and tomorrow.
Dr. Bob Kemp, the vice-president genetic programs in research and development with Genesus and the chair of the Banff Pork Seminar advisory committee, says the conference attracts representation from all segments of the pork industry.
Producers, of course, are a main focus but also a lot of the supporting industry groups such as the feed industry, the genetics industry, veterinarians, equipment and also what we’ve found recently is that we’re getting a lot more interaction with some of the national organizations.
Some of the large research projects and so on are all centering meetings around the Banff Pork Seminar. I think the biggest thing about this meeting is the number of groups that have meetings surrounding this seminar and then stay for the seminar. We have the Canadian Pork Council, so all their board of director people will be here. We have a lot of outside companies and they have a lot of meetings, so key people in support segments to the industry and also then we have a large number of producers.
The networking opportunities really are not so much at the level of just trying to discuss specific items but I think much more at the focus and direction of where the industry is going, what’s the future of the industry. A lot of it tends to be on that broader scale.
Dr. Kemp notes the change in venue, to the Banff Springs Hotel, brings everybody into a closer environment which will really push the networking opportunities and that has been a focus of the advisory committee because it sees networking as a very important part of this meeting.
