Farmscape for December 15, 2005  (Episode 1995)

A Prince Edward Island Veterinarian says the new national identification and traceability system being proposed for the Canadian swine industry has the potential assist in addressing common domestic disease concerns as well as reducing the risks associated with foreign animal disease.

The Canadian Pork Council's National Hog Identification and Traceability Working Group is scheduled to meet next week to examine feedback gathered over the past couple of months during two series of consultations which were held to explain the system and to gather comments and suggestions.

Dr. Dan Hurnik, with the Atlantic Swine Research Partnership in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, was part of the four member delegation that took part in the consultations.

He says, overall the response was quite good, the comments were positive and the delegation received some excellent feedback on how the proposal can be improved upon and implemented.

Clip-Dr. Dan Hurnik, with the Atlantic Swine Research Partnership

I think producers see the need for traceability in all food systems.

The BSE outbreak and some of the foreign animal disease that's happened in other countries makes Canadian producers see that there is a need.

The traceability is primarily driven at looking at the movement of animals between farms.

From a veterinary perspective, it will allow us to have a tool to trace the movement of disease.

Now it's designed for foreign animal disease but it will also be effective for tracing the movement of domestic diseases, providing that people share the information then give each other the permission to look at it.

I think it would be a very useful tool to trace the pattern of disease movement.

Dr. Hurnik few people have questioned why this is being done or if there's a need for it.

He says he was very comforted by the number of people that came out to the sessions and by the fact that there appears to be industry wide buy in into the program.

The working group is scheduled to meet next week and it's expected to present recommendations early next month to the Canadian Pork Council Executive for moving the system forward.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council