Farmscape for September 4, 2013

The chair of the National Farm Animal Care Council's Pig Code Development Committee reports significant progress in the effort to finalize an updated Pig Code of Practice.
Members of the National Farm Animal Care Council's Pig Code Development Committee met last month to discuss public comments on a draft updated Pig Code of Practice and consider changes.
Pig Code Development Committee chair Florian Possberg stresses the process requires committee members to reach consensus before an updated code can be finalized.

Clip- Florian Possberg-Pig Code Development Committee:
We have people from the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies representing the animal welfare side of things, we have producers, we have researchers, government people, industry people and so on so finding consensus is a challenge.
We've tried to tackle some of the big issues like sow housing.
I think we've made some progress there.
We think we've come up with possible scenarios that may work.
It may be the consensus, the compromise that everybody doesn't like but we'll try and live with.
Its too early to tell what we're going to put in the final pig code but I think we've made significant progress.
There's some additional work that is being done behind the scenes to determine what levels of sow housing we have now and that sort of thing.
We'll use that information along with consulting with some of our constituents to make sure that we're on the right trail.

Pig Code Development Committee members are schedule to reconvene in November.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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