Farmscape for December 14, 2011   (Episode 4031)

A new national on-farm biosecurity training program for swine operations is now being rolled out in Alberta.

The National Biosecurity Training Program for swine operations, based on the National Farm Level Biosecurity Standard developed by the Canadian Swine Health Board, was launched earlier this year in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba and the program is now being rolled out in Alberta.

Audrey Cameron, the Animal Care and Quality Assurance Program Coordinator with Alberta Pork, says the veterinarians who will be participating in the program are receiving their training now and producer sessions are scheduled to begin this month.

Clip-Audrey Cameron-Alberta Pork:
First of all the vets are going to be trained and after that we'll have the producer training.

We'll have two producer training sessions before Christmas and most of them will be held after Christmas in January.

We are targeting around 250 sites and in Alberta at the moment we have around 350 total.

We want to reach that target of 250 farms and I'm pretty sure we will reach it.

If possible, if we can have 300, it's open.

We will try to have even more than our target which is 250.

At the moment people keep calling, wanting to register, wanting to know when is the training.

They are even ahead of us because we are still working on finding the training dates in January.

Cameron says the producer sessions run approximately two and a half to three hour but the material is light and easy to follow and she's confident the program will result in important improvements of biosecurity just by making sure a vet is going to the farm to help the producers achieve their goals.

She says most swine vets in Alberta will be trained to deliver the program and she encourages pork producers in the province interested in participating to contact their veterinarian or Alberta Pork.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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