Farmscape for March 8, 2012   (Episode 4102)

The Manager of the National Biosecurity Training Program with Alberta Pork reports producer response in Alberta to the initiative has been exceptional.

The National Biosecurity Training Program, launched last summer, is based on the national farm level biosecurity standard developed by the Canadian Swine Health Board and is designed to familiarize pork producers with the procedures that will protect their herds from disease and assist them in improving biosecurity around their farms.

In December the first training sessions were offered in Alberta.

Audrey Cameron, the Animal Care and Quality Assurance Program Coordinator and Manager of the National Biosecurity Training Program with Alberta Pork, says the training is detailed but easy to follow.

Clip-Audrey Cameron-Alberta Pork:
It has been really such a great response from the producers.

Alberta Pork has been promoting the program across the province quite intensively and the producer recognizes the importance of having good biosecurity protocols and focusing on prevention instead of dealing with issues after the fact.

We had a really really good response.

We just started in December.

We had two training sessions before Christmas and since then we have 245 producers on the program and, by the end of this month, we should be really close to 300,

This represents around 84 percent of our CQA sites in Alberta.

84 percent is quite a good number.

In total we'll have around 500 people that attended those meetings which means managers and farm workers and transporters.

For more information on the National Biosecurity Training Program or to register call Alberta Pork at 780 469-8982, or your local swine veterinarian.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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