The Western Canadian Swine Health Alliance is voicing its concern to the Canada’s Agriculture Minister over the suspension of an emergency protocol designed to keep PED out of Canada.
Effective May 2 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency ended a protocol which had allowed swine transports returning from U.S. farms to be washed and disinfect in Canada and is now requiring disinfection and cleaning in the U.S.
The Western Canadian Swine health Alliance has sent a letter to Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay expressing concern over the change and calling for a solution that will address producer concerns.
Alliance Chair Dickson Gould says these trailers face a far greater risk of contamination from PED or other diseases at U.S. truck wash facilities than they would delivering pigs to a U.S. farm.
When our pigs go down to the U.S. it’s usually single sources of pigs or pigs of the same health status going into that farm and the only touch point between the inside of those trailers and the farm is the loading dock and the back of the trailer. If we have to go in and get the trucks washed and disinfected in a wash facility that is using recycled water and if there happens to be PED virus at that site, then basically all of the crevices within the inside of that trailer get contaminated.
Inside that trailer it’s Canadian weaned pigs, Canadian manure, Canadian straw or Canadian shavings, which ever would be used and so inside that it’s all Canadian content. We’re just very very concerned to get into recycled water or going into truck washes that are not monitoring the PED, Deltacoronavirus or the Seneca Virus and bringing that back into Canadian farms. ~ Dickson Gould – Western Canadian Swine Health Alliance
Gould says timing is very important. He says every day that passes further raises the risk and he would like to see this resolved as soon as possible.
