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 1429

The Canadian Pork Council reports specific protocols contained within Canadian Quality Assurance are targeting concerns related to the quality and safety of feed.

Canadian Quality Assurance is the pork industry's national on farm food safety program. National CQA Coordinator Dawn LeBlanc was on hand yesterday for the Banff Pork Seminar to outline how the program addresses food safety concerns related to feed.

"When we're talking about feed issues, what we're looking at is what are the producers doing on farm to help protect the safety and quality of the feed?

That goes right from developing good communication plans and ensuring good contact with feed suppliers through to proper care of equipment and delivery of the feed.

We're asking producers to create protocols about purchasing feed, storing, mixing and transferring feed.

We're asking them to identify the components of their feeding system, whether they have a mill or whether they're simply buying complete feed, have a storage area for it and are transferring it, records that relate what the ration recipes are, how is the feed mixed?

One of the most important questions in the CQA program is 'what would you do if something went wrong?'

Not only do we want producers to describe how it is that they handle feed, how it's moved around, how it's stored but if something goes wrong within that system how are they prepared to handle it? Who are they going to talk to, what types of records are they going to keep and how are they going to handle the pigs to avoid any potential residues getting into the food system".

LeBlanc says, although BSE does not affect swine, it has certainly brought the issue of feed safety to the public's attention.

She says the swine industry has historically been concerned primarily with drug residues but CQA also addresses biological residues that could transmit disease through the feed.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.