Canada - Round One of National Swine Traceability System Consultations Concludes

A team representing the Canadian Pork Council's Hog Traceability working group has completed the first of two rounds of consultations on a proposed national swine traceability system. The first round involved representatives of the provincial producer organizations and the second will gather input from a wider cross section of stakeholders. Dr. Daniel Hurnik, a veterinarian with the PEI based Atlantic Swine Research Partnership, says the goal is to reduce the risk of a foreign animal disease and allow for a faster response if an out break does occur. In a nutshell what we need producers to do to participate in this is to record their animal movements, how many pigs leave a premise and where do they go and who transported them and the license plate of the truck that transported them. Similarly when somebody receives pigs they would record how many came, from where and the license plate. This is information people have anyway and what we want to do is put that into a central computer system so that, if needed during a time of crisis, that can be retrieved. That can either be put in through an internet computer type process or we're going to explore a touch tone phone or potentially a fax data entry for those who don't have a computer. Dr. Hurnik says input gathered during the first round of consultations will be analyzed over the next week in preparation for the second round. He says the second round, which will begin next month, will be looking for input from a wider cross section of producers and industry stakeholders.