Sask Pork Targets 95 Percent CQA Validation Within Six Months

CANADA - Farm-Scape: Episode 1323. Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.
calendar icon 18 August 2003
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Manitoba Pork Council


Farm-Scape is sponsored by
Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork

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

Farm-Scape, Episode 1323

Sask Pork hopes to have 95 percent of all hogs sold within Saskatchewan fully validated under Canadian Quality Assurance within the next six months.

Canadian Quality Assurance is the Canadian swine industry's national 'on farm' food safety program.

Sask Pork Producer Services Manager Hrvey Wagner says incidents like the BSE situation make everybody more aware of the supply line and we want to make sure the supply line remains free of any contamination whether it's chemical, physical or biological.

"The packers certainly need to be aware of where their supply come from. The want to make sure that the hogs, they purchase and are turning into meat and are selling to the consumers, are of the highest quality possible and that there's no surprises.

The food chain doesn't start on farm. It actually starts at the feed companies, with the grain production and the gain milling. It goes on farm and then there's a hazard analysis program at all the packing plants and right through the delivery system to make sure the food supply chain says healthy with the best possible product we can ever have.

The CQA program is the best mechanism to make sure that happens.

It's going to be more difficult to sell hogs in the future if you're not validated. Some packers have announced deadlines and others are probably going to be very close to announcing deadlines so the sooner that producers become enrolled and become validated in the CQA program the better it is for everybody".

Wagner estimates 84 percent of Saskatchewan's hogs now originate on farms that are fully validated under CQA with another three percent coming from farms that have registered for the program and are still going through the recognition process.

He says, given the number of people moving in and out of the industry, his goal is to see 95 percent of the province's hogs coming from fully validated farms within the next six months.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.
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