Farmscape for April 1, 2011   (Episode 3549)

The chair of Manitoba Pork Council's research committee says, before any alternatvie system for housing gestating sows can be endorsed for widespread adoption, it needs to be thoroughly assessed.

The Manitoba pork industry's vision for long-term sustainability, "Embracing a Sustainable Future", was released last month.

The document outlines 82 commitments being made by the province's pork producers on a range of issues, including investing in research.

Manitoba Pork Council research committee chair Rick Bergmann says, although there's been a lot of pressure to look at different methods for housing sows, Manitoba's pork producers want to ensure that before any changes are made on a large scale that the research is conducted beforehand.

Clip-Rick Bergmann-Manitoba Pork Council:
One of the research priorities that we have now that we're exploring with the University of Manitoba is a project on alternative sow housing.

Currently we're meeting with the university, with Dr. Laurie Connor's department in pulling together a pilot project on alternative sow housing.

There are lots of styles of sow housing, not only in Manitoba but around the world, and certainly we want to be aware of the best practices out there.

Council's perspective is before producers make all kinds of changes it's imperative that we do some research and development on potential new ways of housing sows to ensure that if there is a model that's better, that it's explored and the kinks are taken out a research and development level.

Bergmann says, to mirror what's happening within the industry right now, the multi-year pilot project will be conducted on a large-scale farm  which will provide real life data.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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