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 1389

The Manager of Sask Pork says a national traceability template being developed for tracking live animal movement is focusing on the needs of all livestock species.

The swine industry has set a two year target for having a system in place for tracking the movement of all hogs produced in Canada.

Traceability was one of the topics discussed yesterday at Saskatchewan Swine Symposium 2003.

Neil Ketilson says Canada's lone BSE incident has heightened the awareness of the importance of having a national system for tracking the movement of all species of cloven animals.

"The purpose of traceability is to be able to zone the country into different regions so that if we had a problem in one area of the country that the other areas remain open for international marketing so that's really the driving force behind that.

We, as an organization, are working with a number of other agencies in Canada such as the Canadian Pork Council, the National Animal Health Coalition, Agriculture and Agrifood Canada and the provincial governments in terms of developing a traceability system which is consistent for all species and all producers whether they be producing bison, cattle, hogs, sheep, goats, what ever it is.

Really the objective is to look after the weakest link so that regardless of whether or not there was a contagious outbreak we would be able to quantify and know the movement of animals in a specific region so that we could zone that region to protect the international marketing ability of regions outside that particular sphere".

Ketilson says one key is to develop a system that will easily integrate into existing structures and that will provide information useful in day to day management as well as in tracking animal movement.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.