Farmscape for September 9, 2013

The general manager of the National Farm Animal Care Council says continued open communication will be key as members of the Pig Code Development Committee work to finalized an updated Pig Code of Practice.
Members of the National Farm Animal Care Council's Pig Code Development Committee met last month to begin the review of the almost five thousand comments received from the public on a proposed updated Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs in Canada and will get together again in November.
NFACC general manager Jackie Wepruk says, while the goal is to have a final consensus by year's end, it's more important to ensure the code is done right.

Clip-Jackie Wepruk-National Farm Animal Care Council:
After so much public debate and rhetoric in the media the fact that the code development committee is still committed to consensus I think is a powerful statement on the value of our Canadian way of approaching contentious issues.
Certainly freedom of movement has been a lightning rod issue for this code as demonstrated by the type of media coverage that has been out there.
The relative importance of that as an issue in animal welfare is certainly seen differently by different groups so balancing these differences with the realities faced by producers around financial sustainability and competitive have certainly made this a particularly challenging code.
Another key challenge is ensuring that the new pig code has a long term vision that supports animal welfare through a financially sustainable and competitive hog industry.
In order to achieve this of course stakeholders beyond the producer community are going to need to be involved.
While that is beyond the mandate of the code development committee itself, producers will need support from an array of allied groups, government, retail and food service, consumers and processors for this code to be a success.

Wepruk suggests, to ensure a successful completion of the project, everyone around the table needs to keep talking.
For Farmscape,.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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