University News for June 28, 2012

A Canadian program designed to assist pork producers in improving the biosecurity on their farms is attracting international interest.
The National Biosecurity Training Program, which was developed by the Canadian Swine Health Board based on its National Biosecurity Standard for hog farm and delivered by the provincial pork organizations, was discussed earlier this month as part of the International Pig Veterinary Society Congress in Jeju, South Korea.
Canadian Swine Health Board chair Florian Possberg says the training focuses on the ways disease can infect swine herds and the practices that will minimize the risk of infection.

Clip-Florian Possberg-Canadian Swine Health Board :
The standards are kind of a gathering of all of the good principles that have been talked about in the swine industry both in Canada and globally and so there's a whole number of things that go into a good biosecurity program for individual farms.
Our training program is based on these standards that we've come up with and we've put it in a form that is pretty practical and useful for producers.
If they can follow these things they'll really protect their herds from disease entry.

Possberg says originally the hope was to enroll 75 percent of producers in the program but in some provinces, producer participation has been as high as 95 percent so now the thought is that participation nationally could exceed 80 or even 85 percent.
He says following the IPVS Congress presentation, several countries expressed an interest in getting more information on the program and, while it was developed first and foremost for Canadian producers, if we can reduce the threat of disease in the hog population in general that will be a good thing.
For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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