Canada - National Hog ID and Traceability Blueprint Expected by Mid-2005

The Canadian Pork Council says a blueprint for a national hog identification and traceability system will be ready for industry consultation within the first half of 2005. Last week the CPC's National Hog Identification and Traceability System Working Committee received a draft report from a series of pilot studies set up to provide direction for establishing a national ID and traceability system. The final report is due by the end of January. Working Committee Chair Dennis McKerracher says a technical working committee will compile the results of those studies and come forth with recommendations. "There's a wide range of different types of events that have been studied. They looked at different types of identifiers. Should we be looking at ear tags, ear tattoos, body tattoos, shoulder slap tattoos? How do you address when pigs are co-mingled? If you have multiple sites supplying one finisher barn, how do you treat that? How do you prove the integrity of a group when it moves farm to farm so that you could look at lot identification as opposed to individual identification? What are other countries doing? How will our system stack up to the standards set by the International Organization of Epidemiology? How will our trading partners react? What do we have to do to maintain that we can guarantee our trading partners a supply of quality safe pork products in the event we have an outbreak?" McKerracher says a blueprint for a national hog identification and traceability system will be ready for the Canadian Pork Council and its provincial members to consult on in the first half of 2005. He says, two tasks yet to be addressed prior to those consultations include provisions for a national premise registration and a national pig tattoo number scheme.