Farmscape for December 23, 2015

Alberta Pork has launched a new program to help the province's pork producers develop plans that will limit the spread of any infections they encounter on their farms to other farms.
Alberta Pork has developed a biocontainment plan which pork producers will be able to customize for their farms to be triggered in the event they suspect PED.
The Alberta Pork Biocontainment Plan Program, the launch of which was announced last week as part of Alberta Pork's monthly Telephone Town Hall, provides participating producers $600 to develop plans with the herd veterinarians.
Dr. Kurt Preugschas, with Innovative Veterinary Services, says for the past number of years there has been a great deal of focus on disease prevention and rightly so.

Clip-Kurt Preugschas-Innovative Veterinary Services:
For an individule prooducer keeping the diseases out of the farm is obviously the most critical step.
This is demonstrated by our continued negative status to diseases such as PED Seneca Valley Virus and many more.
What we have spent less time discussing is biocontainment, which is critical for the overall health of the induistry, and these new diseases are a perfect example of why biocontainment becomes very important.
If we can limit the number of farms affected by a disease through excellent biocontainment protocols, we will ensure the long term viability of the industry.
This is the basis for this biocontainment prgram, ensure maximim preparedness on your farm prior to a disease outbreak so everyione knows what to do before being in an emergency situation.
If we have a biocontainment plan in place prior to a disease outbreak occuring, we can control and minimise a disease impact on the farm and prevent spreading the diease to other farms.
Similar to external biosecurity principles, a biocontainment plan is not limited to 1 specific disease.
It has tremendous value as it can be applied to many different diseases.

Dr. Preugschas ackowledges the hope is that the biocontainment plan will never need to be triggered.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork