Farm-Scape, Episode 2127

The Saskatchewan Pork Development Board is rolling out a new trucker manifest for use by anyone who moves pigs along public roadways in Saskatchewan.

In an effort to streamline the legal documentation necessary when moving pigs along public roads, the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, in consultation with farmers, marketers, transporters, packers and government, has developed a new one page four copy trucker's manifest.

Producers Services Manager Harvey Wagner says the intent is to cut down on the number of different pieces of paper transporters in Saskatchewan, particularly commercial truckers, have to have.

"What is contains is, it's going to be a document that'll be used anytime the animal basically drives on a public road.

That includes animals going to market and also interfarm transfer so what all it contains is the actual owner of the pigs, room to identify the producer numbers, the food safety or CQA number, the type of hogs that are on the load, their tattoo numbers, their identification, possibly the tag numbers if they want to do that.

It also says where they came from, the originating barn, the actual premise where they came from, who's the transporter, the actual trucker, who's the driver, license plate numbers and truck numbers and then where they're consigned to, or who's the receiving premise whether it's a farm, an assembly yard or a packing plant.

The idea of that is so that it is going to be satisfying the full traceability as we move to full traceability from farm to packing plant but also farm to farm so that we have a document that gives enough information to provide a complete trail of movement for all hogs in the case of foreign animal diseases or that type of a crisis."

Wagner notes the new documents are starting to make their way into the field now and will be available through the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, through the SPI assembly yards and through most of the packers.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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.