Farmscape for April 1, 2014

The manager of public relations and consumer marketing with Manitoba Pork reports the threat of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea has prompted a redesign of the pork industry's "Thru the Farm Gate" display at Brandon's Royal Manitoba Winter Fair.
Among the highlights of the annual Royal Manitoba Winter Fair, which kicked off yesterday in Brandon, is Thru the Farm Gate which was introduced in 2001 as part of the event's agricultural education component.
Susan Riese, the manager of public relations and consumer marketing with Manitoba Pork, says the main difference with this year's pork industry display is, to maintain the highest possible level of biosecurity in response to PED, there are no live animals on display.

Clip-Susan Riese-Manitoba Pork Council:
What we've done is we've replaced the live animals with a few different pieces of equipment that are being used in the industry, one of them being an electronic sow feeder, and that's attracted a lot of interest.
People are quite curious as to what the equipment is.
They're watching the video, they're seeing how the sows go in and feed and then come out and are curious as to how that works so there's been some great discussions about that.
We've also included a live replica of a life size pig so it's definitely a point of interest and kids love having their picture taken with the pig of course.
We've also added an alternative sow stall which is being used by some of industry as we transition into loose housing systems and that's been great too because it gives us a chance to reinforce the message that these sows do have the option of choosing privacy or community and also the message that virtually all the fresh pork you buy comes from pigs raised in open pens.
That's been another misconception out there amongst the public and it's a great way to be able to address that.

Riese notes Manitoba Pork is in the process of redesigning its live animal exhibit and the new display will be introduced in June at the Red River Exhibition in Winnipeg.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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