University News

Stepped-Up Biosecurity Helps Maintain Stability of Manitoba Swine Herd Health

Dr. Blaine Tully - Swine Health Professionals — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for February 6, 2012

A southern Manitoba swine veterinarian credits a stepped-up focus on biosecurity for maintaining the stability of the health status of the Manitoba swine herd.

"Diseases in Manitoba: An Update" was among the topics discussed last week as part of the 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar.

Dr. Blaine Tully, a partner with Steinbach-based Swine Health Professionals, reports the health status of the Manitoba swine herd has been fairly stable but he acknowledges health is always relative and over time health changes between farms but also in regions.

Clip-Dr. Blaine Tully-Swine Health Professionals:
Biosecurity has always been a focus on swine farms and continues to be.

For that reason I think Manitoba has enjoyed a somewhat stable health.

We've heard some pretty dramatic health challenges with PRRS virus in other parts of Canada and the mid-west U.S. over this past winter and we haven't really seen those same challenges in Manitoba fortunately.

Having said that, PRRS is always top of mind and farms that struggle with PRRS circulation continue to be challenged with performance-related health issues.

Farms that don't have PRRS in their pigs continue to be focused on keeping it out of the farm.

Besides PRRS virus we continue to see challenge and control strategies evolving for circovirus disease and we have several good tools in vaccines at our fingertips and as time goes on we learn more and more on how some of those tools can be applied on farm to best optimize control strategies.

Dr. Tully predicts we'll see more use of technology to identify specific disease challenges, stepped up surveillance to track pathogen movement in regions and further development of control strategies.

He suggests, for example, new tools that allow scientists to identify and compare different strains of PRRS will to be critical in understanding not only disease transmission but control strategies as well.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is produced by Wonderworks Canada

Solid-Liquid Separation Shows Promise for Managing Manure Phosphorus

Lorne Grieger - Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for February 3, 2012

A recently completed evaluation of two solid-liquid manure separation systems indicates the technology offers a potentially viable option for addressing concerns related to the phosphorus contained in swine manure.

The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute, in partnership with the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative, Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the University of Manitoba, the National Centre for Livestock and the Environment and the Puratone Corporation, has completed an evaluation of two commercially available technologies for solid-liquid swine manure separation.

Preliminary results were presented yesterday as part of the 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar in Winnipeg.

PAMI agricultural projects manager Lorne Grieger says the technologies are intended to modify the manure nutrients so they can be more readily applied.

Clip-Lorne Grieger-Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute:
The purpose of the evaluation was to determine if there were technologies that were readily available to assist producers in solving some of their phosphorus manure application issues being presented because of regulation changes in 2013.

The systems that were evaluated were a centrifuge as well as the Fournier rotary press.

The systems are intended to de-water or remove the solid particles which contain a high percentage of the phosphorus in the liquid manure stream.

The technologies were evaluated at a commercial barn site that's owned and operated by the Puratone Corporation and the evaluation method was set up to determine how much manure could be treated per day, samples taken to determine the nutrient changes as the manure is processed through the two different machines and the information is being analyzed and written up into a final report.

Greiger notes 50 to 60 percent phosphorus removal and higher, depending on the manure phosphorus concentration, was observed.

However he stresses other factors to be considered include how the second manure stream will handled as well as potential health and safety issues that can arise from working with liquid manure that sits and has the potential to release hydrogen sulfide gas.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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Industrialization Creates Conflict Among Small and Large Scale Agriculture

Kenton Lobe - Canadian Mennonite University — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for February 2, 2012

A professor with Canadian Mennonite University suggests the drive toward greater mechanization of agriculture has created conflict among small and large scale food production systems.

"Our Contested Food System: Exploring Underlying Paradigms and Worldviews" will be discussed this afternoon part of the University of Manitoba's Advanced Plant Science Seminar series.

Kenton Lobe, an instructor in International Development Studies with Canadian Mennonite University, observes one of the arguments about the industrial approach to agriculture is around scale and technology.

Clip-Kenton Lobe-Canadian Mennonite University:
If you think about places in which subsistence and peasant agriculture remains, these are the contexts in which real hunger still exists in the world, malnourishment, children under five, all of those statistics that we see when we think about hunger in the world, they're mostly in rural contexts and they're largely in rural contexts in which farming is the primary livelihood.

The natural question then is why is it that we have farmers in the developing world or in the global south that are going hungry.

We need to look at what kinds of support have farmers had access to in the global south and then you find out that as neoliberalism rolled out in the 1980s and 1990s the government's role got small and the ag extension services for example were dispatched and gotten rid of and so the farmers there were left without supports.

I think we have this strange tension between almost a billion people that exist in situations of malnutrition alongside of more than a billion people who are considered clinically obese.

We have this massive oversupply here in North America for example as well as in the global south we have populations that are struggling just to get enough to eat.

Lobe suggests the question this conflict raises for Canadians who are donating money through the federal government to aid projects is are we interested in supporting small holder farming, if so what kind and if not what are we planning to do?

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is produced by Wonderworks Canada

Greater Rural-Urban Interaction Encouraged to Address Food Related Challenges

Kenton Lobe - Canadian Mennonite University — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for February 1, 2012

A professor with Canadian Mennonite University is encouraging greater communication among rural and urban populations as a means of addressing conflict related to food production.

The topic "Our Contested Food System: Exploring Underlying Paradigms and Worldviews" will be discussed tomorrow as part of the University of Manitoba's advanced plant science seminar series.

Kenton Lobe, an instructor in International Development Studies with Canadian Mennonite University, observes we're in the midst of a global food crisis, in places where subsistence and peasant agriculture remain, real hunger still exists and mostly in rural areas where farming is the primary livelihood.

Clip-Kenton Lobe-Canadian Mennonite University:
If you ask what needs to be done, I think one of the things that needs to be done is for us to spend considerably more time examining the urban-rural question.

For me, practically speaking, what it means is in March I'm organizing a group of urban listeners to go out to rural Manitoba and to listen only to eight different farmers, answer the question of what is it that urban and townfolk need to understand about growing food, about marketing their food and how their underlying understanding of the land impacts their farming.

Urban folks are making assumptions about farming and about farmers that are not always helpful, in terms of they're simply looking to make the biggest buck and the they don't care about the land, they're not concerned about what they're putting on the land or where that's going and I think that's a simplistic understanding of what's actually going on.

In order to get at that I think we need to move urban folks into rural contexts, to have a real conversation with farmers about the struggles that they're facing.

I think that's one of the ways in which we can address this.

Lobe notes we currently produce enough in the world for everyone to have enough to eat but the fact that almost a billion people exist is situations of malnutrition alongside more than a billion who are considered clinically obese indicate something isn't working.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is produced by Wonderworks Canada

2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar to Focus on Ideas Applicable to the Farm

Dr. Martin Nyachoti - University of Manitoba — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for January 31, 2012

An animal science professor with the University of Manitoba says the 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar will feature information designed to help pork producers survive the tough times they've experienced in the recent years.

The 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar kicks off tomorrow in Winnipeg and wraps up Thursday.

Dr. Martin Nyachoti, an animal science professor with the University of Manitoba and co-chair of the 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar, says the program is developed by a committee made up of pork producers and other industry stakeholders as well as representatives of the provincial government and the University of Manitoba.

Clip-Dr. Martin Nyachoti-University of Manitoba:
Manitoba Swine seminar I think has become the premier event for sharing information and ideas regarding the swine industry and pork production in the province of Manitoba.

We have a theme for this year which we have had for awhile, it's "Sharing Ideas and Information for Efficient Pork Production".

The focus really is to bring in people to address topical issues.

We hope at the end of the two-day event the attendees will be able to take home some practical information that they might be able to apply in their production units.

Basically what we are intending to accomplish here is to bring in experts to speak to specific topics that the committee believes are important to the swine producers in Manitoba.

The committee once again has put together an excellent panel of speakers addressing very topical issues, issues to do with the environment, efficiency, disease and how to optimize managing of finishing pigs so I think there is something in there for everyone.

Some of these ideas or topics that will be covered, by the way, they were suggested by attendees last year in the survey that we conducted during the swine seminar.

Dr. Nyachoti suggests it's important to make sure producers are equipped with knowledge and ideas they can apply to their operations.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is produced by Wonderworks Canada

2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar to Focus on Sharing Ideas to Improve Pork Production

Dr. Martin Nyachoti - University of Manitoba — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for January 30, 2012

An animal science professor with the University of Manitoba says the 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar will feature information designed to equip the province's pork producers to improve the efficiency of their operations.

The theme of the 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar, slated for Wednesday and Thursday February 1st and 2nd in Winnipeg, is "Sharing Ideas and Information for Efficient Pork Production".

Dr. Martin Nyachoti, an animal science professor with the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and co-chair of the 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar, says the annual program has become the premier event for sharing information and ideas regarding the swine industry and pork production in the province of Manitoba.

Clip-Dr. Martin Nyachoti-University of Manitoba:
I think it's very very important because of what is going on for example in the industry right now.

Everything that we can do to help the industry prosper or survive the tough times that have been experienced in the recent years is obviously a very good thing.

The speakers that we've invited, the topics that they will be addressing, we hope that there is something in there for people that will be attending that they can take and apply and also will then make them more efficient or make their production units more efficient and therefore a chance at survival and making sure that they stay in business.

I think it's important from that perspective to make sure that we equip the producers with knowledge and ideas that they can apply.

It's also very important because it gives us an opportunity to bring in speakers that otherwise would not be coming to the province, people from different parts that come in and share ideas about what is it that they have done or is going on in their places that we might be able to borrow.

Dr. Nyachoti says the Manitoba Swine Seminar is geared toward the swine industry and typically attracts swine producers, feed and equipment suppliers, veterinarians, and students and staff from the University of Manitoba.

He notes many of the topics that will be addressed this year were suggested by those who attended last year's event.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

-The 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar is slated for February 1-2 at the Victoria Inn in Winnipeg.

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Pork Producers Encouraged to Step Up Biosecurity to Guard Against Swine Dysentery

Dr. John Harding - Western College of Veterinary Medicine — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for January 27, 2012

An associate professor with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine is encouraging pork producers to step up their focus on biosecurity to guard against the introduction of swine dysentery.

Swine dysentery is a bacterial infection that causes bloody diarrhea primarily in grower-finisher pigs.

Dr. John Harding, an associate professor with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, explains the pathogen responsible for swine dysentery is transmitted by feces and can enter the farm through a number of vectors including shoes, live pigs that are subclinically infected or carriers, on transport vehicles, possibly on deadstock routes and he suggests if your farm has become infected it's an indication there's been a lapse in biosecurity.

Clip-Dr. John Harding-Western College of Veterinary Medicine:
It's a very interesting story in that across North America, the prevalence of swine dysentery has been extremely low to non-existent since about the early 1990s.

Beginning around 2002-2003 in the U.S. they started to see an increase in swine dysentery cases.

That has continued in western Canada.

We saw our first case of swine dysentery in 2009 after about a 15-year absence of the disease and since 2009 then we've seen a rapid increase in the number of cases.

Not to say that it is an epizootic outbreak, a severe outbreak, but just small numbers of farms but certainly an increase every year in the number of affected farms in western Canada.

Dr. Harding encourages any farms that are non-infected to critically review all stages of their biosecurity programs.

He says, at this point, most affected farms do not know exactly how they became infected which suggests that most farms in operation today are at risk.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is produced by Wonderworks Canada

Manure Separation Technology Shown Effective But Challenging to Adopt

John Carney - Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for January 26, 2012

An evaluation of solid-liquid manure separation has shown while the technology offers the opportunity to better match the application of the nutrients contained in livestock manure to the needs of crops, its application can be a challenge.

The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute in collaboration with the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative, the University of Manitoba and Puratone, are evaluating commercially available manure separation technologies under Manitoba conditions.

Preliminary results of this work will be discussed next week in Winnipeg as part of the 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar.

MLMMI executive director John Carney notes while the solids in manure are rich in phosphorus, the liquids rich in nitrogen so by creating two streams those nutrients can be better utilized to meet the needs of crops.

Clip-John Carney-Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative:
We have learned that it's far more complicated than just plugging in a piece of equipment and turning it on and out come results.

There has been a number of learning curve aspects of this, everything from many barns don't have electrical power that is robust enough and clean enough to deal with this level of equipment, everything from access to moving equipment into the part of the barn that you need it in to having a place to house the equipment.

In some cases you can't have equipment out in the elements and also, when you agitate manure, you generate hydrogen sulfide gas and so there's a whole series of questions and considerations in how do you do this in a way that keeps our Manitoba workers safe and protects their livelihood.

Carney notes the solid-liquid manure separation evaluation began in the summer of 2011, preliminary results will be presented at the Manitoba Swine Seminar Thursday morning and a final report will be released in March.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

-The Manitoba Swine Seminar is slated for Wednesday, February 1 and Thursday, February 2 at the Victoria Inn in Winnipeg.

*University News is produced by Wonderworks Canada

Combination of Factors Work Together to Characterize Soil

John Heard - Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for January 25, 2012

A soil fertility extension specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives says a range of factors work together to characterize soil.

In 2010 Manitoba designated its own official provincial soil.

"Soil Safari 2011: Manitoba to Texas and Back" will be the topic discussed tomorrow afternoon as part of the University of Manitoba's Advanced Plant Science Seminar Series.

During a recent trip to Texas to take part in annual research meetings held by the American Society of Agronomy, John Heard, a soil fertility extension specialist with MAFRI, collected soil samples from South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.

Clip-John Heard-Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives:
It's nice to be operating from the extreme and I tend to compare things against our own trophy soil, the Newdale clay loam.

The three factors that determine the difference in the soils are their genetics, which is the parent material whether it was glaciated soil or loess soil or flood-deposited soil.

The other thing is the climate and we'll see soils during my presentation that come from areas with an average annual temperature that's 20 degrees warmer than Manitoba, that receive more than two times as much rainfall and have a growing season that's almost two and a half times as long, huge variation there.

The other factor is the natural vegetation that they developed under but, like I say, the soils are very adaptable.

They have learned to exist under crop land and blending in with the background is really their ability to elude the hunter.

Heard notes, while each of the U.S. states has designated a state soil to represent agriculture, Manitoba is the first province to designate a provincial soil and that puts us on the North American map.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

-John Heard's presentation is slated for 3:30 Thursday January 26 in the Carolyn Sifton Lecture Theatre (Room 130) Agriculture Building at the University of Manitoba.

*University News is produced by Wonderworks Canada

Soil Safari 2011 Captures Soil Samples from 12 States

John Heard - Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

University News for January 24, 2012

A soil fertility extension specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives reports huge variations will be seen in soils between Manitoba and Texas.

"Soil Safari 2011: Manitoba to Texas and Back" will be the focus of the University of Manitoba's Advanced Plant Science Seminar Thursday afternoon.

John Heard, a soil fertility extension specialist with MAFRI, will discuss his trip to Texas to take part in annual research meetings held by the American Society of Agronomy, during which he collected soil samples from different states along the trip.

He says he was able to capture samples from South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.

Clip-John Heard-Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives:
Soils can be a rather elusive quarry.

They're rather slow moving but they do disguise themselves very well, either under natural vegetation or frequently today under cropland and that really is a challenge.

Not a lot of stealth is required to approach the prey but being able to recognize it's habitat and environment.

For that I was grateful that each of these states has designated a state soil so we know the general location of where they would be but frequently I required the assistance of a guide, who happened to be the state soil fertility specialist, had kind of pinpointed me to where I should go.

Sometimes I was even provided with guide service in order to capture my prey.

Heard says he tends to compare the soils in other areas to our own Newdale clay loam, north of Brandon, which was designated as Manitoba's provincial soil in 2010.

He notes he collected samples from areas that have an average annual temperature that is 20 degrees warmer than Manitoba, that receive more than two times as much rainfall and have a growing season that's almost two and a half times as long so there's a huge variation.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is produced by Wonderworks Canada