Farmscape for April 1, 2016

The U.S. based Swine Health Information Center has allocated over $3 million in 2016 to help the U.S. pork industry become better prepared to respond to emerging disease threats.
In response to the devastation caused to the U.S. swine herd by Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea, the Swine Health Information Center was established in July 2015.
Swine Health Information Center Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg says the Board of Directors has committed 1.6 million dollars in 2016 for research and 1.7 million dollars for program and support projects focusing on disease preparedness, response, analysis and monitoring.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
The core mission of the centre is to protect and enhance the health of the U.S. swine herd and there's 3 big buckets that we're working on with that.
One is to coordinate global disease monitoring so we know what's circulating around the world so we can better define risks for the U.S. swine herd.
Another is targeted research investments in order to be able to be better prepared and minimize the impact of future diseases that make it into the country and the third is to analyze swine health data  order to be able to support and help producers and their veterinarians manage the health of their herds real time right now.
From the mandate of our preparedness, our monitoring and our response there are really 4 different areas that we're looking at for the 2016 plan of work, the preparedness, response analysis and monitoring.
We've got a full plan of work in all 4 of those program areas so it's going to be a very busy 2016.

Dr. Sundberg says efforts will include the tracking of 40 some different diseases that are already present or may find their way into the United States, working with the veterinary diagnostic labs to standardize the manner in which disease test results are reported and supporting supplemental diagnostics in cases where a veterinarian has been unable to identify the cause of swine health problem.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork