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

Farm-Scape, Episode 2146

Manitoba Pork Council reports it's awaiting clarification on space allowance requirements contained within the new Animal Care Assessment tool before it begins to encourage widespread adoption of the program.

The animal Care Assessment Tool was developed as a voluntary component of Canadian Quality Assurance in an effort to provide assurance to consumers that farm animals are treated humanely.

Although producers have been highly supportive of the initiative there have been concerns expressed over space allocation requirements in the finisher barn.

Manitoba Pork Council CQA coordinator Miles Beaudin explains space allocation becomes a factor as the pigs approach market weight.

For a producer to understand how to make the calculations, that needed to be understood because there's variability in the pig's weight so you could not calculate space requirements on face value just by total square footage and total number of pigs.

There's a whole bunch of dynamics occurring between the beginning and the complete ending of the production cycle within a finishing barn. In week one to week ten there's a lot of room.

Things start to really change in week 11, 12 and 13 so that's when our square footage's tend to get critical and then we start shipping out during that time so we had to work the animal care assessment plan to the dynamics of a finishing barn.

We needed to understand that a little better to make sure that the program can be worked on the finishing barns in Manitoba, either continuous flow or all in all out and for all market weights.

Beaudin says 40 validators are trained and ready to go but he's been reluctant to promote widespread adoption of the program until the calculations for space can be more clearly defined and producers are better equipped to calculate their own square footage's.

He notes Manitoba Pork Council's Quality Assurance Committee will be examining the issue later this week.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.