Farmscape for January 15, 2013

A survey of Western Canada PRRS-Free Herd Certification Pilot Project participants, being launched this week at the 2013 Banff Pork Seminar, will be used to assess the value of PRRS-free herd certification.
The Western Canada PRRS-Free Herd Certification Pilot Project, administered by the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board on behalf of the Canadian Swine Health Board through 2011 and 2012, provided suppliers of live pigs a protocol to certify their animals as free of PRRS.
Mark Ferguson, the manager of industry and policy analysis with Sask Pork says, to assess potential market demand, participants in the project and their customers will be asked how they currently ensure stock is PRRS-free, what that costs and whether and how much buyers would be willing to pay for PRRS-free certified stock.

Clip-Mark Ferguson-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:
We're going to do two reports.
One is going to be a business plan that will outline the administrative considerations for the program such as how much does it cost to administer the program, what organization should be responsible, those types of broad program considerations.
We're also going to be publishing a study into the market demand for the program and the willingness to pay, just to demonstrate whether there is value to the industry on pursuing this certification for PRRS and maybe other traits in the future.
We're hoping it will give us a very good indication of whether we should continue developing the program beyond the pilot stage and then basically establish it as an ongoing program.
I think too often we implement programs that maybe there isn't a willingness to pay by those further down the value chain and it ends up being a cost of doing business.
We don't want that to happen with this program so we want to make sure if we continue that there's a definite willingness to pay and that there's a value that will flow through to producers if they do participate.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Western Canada PRRS-Free Herd Certification Pilot Project is encouraged to contact the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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