The executive director of the Canadian Swine Health Board says, even in these tough economic times, Canada’s pork producers continue to respond positively to national efforts aimed at reducing the risk the transmission of disease to our swine herd.
The 2012 Canadian Swine Health Forum, underway today and tomorrow in Winnipeg, is bringing together pork producers, swine veterinarians, representatives of government and other industry stakeholders to discuss a range of initiatives spearheaded by the Canadian Swine Health Board aimed at protecting pigs from disease.
Canadian Swine Health Board executive director Bob Harding says pork producers have recognized what needs to be done and have welcomed these initiatives with open arms.
One of the things that we found is that for our industry animal health was very important and our producers knew that and what we have found though is that the way to deal with certain disease challenges was not unified across the country.
There was no opportunity for networking at the producer level, at the veterinary level, even at the research level and our mandate is very clear that it’s about national programming.
While our industry is different in different parts of the country and our approaches have to be a little bit different to recognize that variety across the country, we’ve tied it all together.
That’s been front and centre of all of our programming to ensure that it’s national programming so that we can learn from each other so if there is something that happens in one part of the country we can have a unified discussion and response if required.
Harding observes animal health has always been top of mind among most producers and all segments of the industry are especially focused on disease prevention right now.
He notes health is the second largest cost factor in growing pigs after feed and it is also the most controllable one.
