The Prince Edward Island Hog Marketing Board reports producer enrollment in the Canadian Swine Health Board’s National Biosecurity Training Program has been higher than originally expected.
The National Biosecurity Training Program, based on the National Farm Level Biosecurity Standard developed by the Canadian Swine Health Board, was launched in Prince Edward Island earlier this year.
The program is open to registered pork producers certified under the Canadian Quality Assurance Program and is designed to provide them with the tools necessary to protect their herds from disease.
Tim Seeber, the Executive Director of the Prince Edward Island Hog Marketing Board, estimates participation in PEI is running at just under 90 percent.
Our participation rate has been actually better than we had expected and I think that some of the other provinces experienced the same.
The fact that there is money on the table to reimburse producers for their time and their efforts in attending the training and doing a self assessment and then there’s funding available for veterinarians to visit the farms, also funding for the veterinarians to put on the training sessions, I think that has contributed.
Here in Prince Edward Island we have maybe more of a biosecure environment than maybe a lot of regions in Canada.
Being an island and also the contraction of the industry over the last four or five years has created a natural biosecurity barrier through premise distancing.
PEI right now is a very small industry compared to what it was back a number of years ago.
We only have 24 commercial producers here and of those 24 commercial producers we expect that at least 21 of those sites will attend the training sessions and that amounts to just under 90 percent participation which is, we consider pretty good.
For more information on the National Biosecurity Training Program visit the Canadian Swine Health Board web site at swinehealth.ca or contact your provincial pork organization or local swine health veterinarian.
