Farm-Scape is sponsored by Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork Play Audio Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.

Farm-Scape, Episode 1315

Manitoba Pork Council has launched a new initiative designed to lay some of the groundwork necessary to achieve zoning for Canada's pork industry.

The Canadian Pork Council is developing a national approach for tracking the movement of livestock throughout Canada to establish zoning.

As part of that approach, Manitoba Pork Council will harness Geographic Information System technology to build a foreign animal disease control database.

Pork Council Vice Chair and Traceability and Zoning Committee Member Karl Kynoch says the database will allow Manitoba hog farmers to better identify, trace and respond to animal health problems.

"We've been working on getting a GIS system up and running. Basically we need a national system so that we can track all the movement of hogs right across Canada to get zoning done.

What zoning does is, if we have a foreign animal disease break out in the east or the west, hopefully we can get one part of Canada up and shipping sooner.

To get our foreign animal disease zoning done, we need to be able to prove that no animals have crossed the zone.

For example the first zone we'd like to set up is at the Ontario Manitoba border where there's only one highway going east and west.

The sooner we can prove, in the event of a disease outbreak, that nothing has crossed that zone the sooner we can resume shipping in part of Canada.

The one thing that I think is really going to speed this up is the fact of the BSE outbreak. I think it's made a lot of producers and government officials realize the importance of having a disease zoning strategy so, the sooner we can get this into place, the less detriment that may be caused to our industry".

The database will be developed over the next 18 months and will eventually include information on the location, size and type of all hog farms in the province.

It's anticipated data collection will begin in September.