Farmscape for April 14, 2016

The Chair of the Canadian Pork Council is calling for the continuation of a pilot project credited with helping keep Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea out of western Canada.
On May 2 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is scheduled to end a pilot project which allows swine transport vehicles returning from the U.S. to be washed and disinfected at Canadian truck washes and require those transports to be cleaned in the U.S.
Rick Bergmann, the Chair of the Canadian Pork Council, told those on hand yesterday for Manitoba Pork's 2016 Annual General Meeting, it has been the diligence of Canadian transporters and truck washes that has kept PED out of western Canadian farms.

Clip-Rick Bergmann-Canadian Pork Council:
There's few carriers that will haul the majority of the swine into the U.S. to farms as isoweans or 50 pound pigs and the major haulers have their own wash bays where they have control over the protocols, the biosecurity, the washing, the disinfecting, the heat drying and so on.
So it's those processes and that discipline that has really helped us keep our heath as good as it is with our livestock.
What we're requesting is, we've got a pilot project here that is science based, outcome based and it's been a huge success.
To me that trumps a theory of how things should work.
Science and outcome based information is so valuable.
We have that information.
It shows us that we've succeeded in our efforts of keeping PEDv out and, if you look in different parts of Canada or the U.S. you understand the severity of this virus and other viruses.
We're really concerned that all of the work that we've done is going to be lost if the May 2 date actually comes into reality.

Bergmann says when we look at how western Canada has been able to avoid the challenge of PED, it's primarily because of the pilot project that's been in place.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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