As part of the On-Farm Food Safety Program, offered under the federal-provincial Growing Forward Program, Manitoba Agriculture Food and Rural Initiatives is providing up to two thousand dollars to be applied toward the purchase of a needle-free injector.

MAFRI business development specialist for swine Robyn Harte reports, since April 2009, 173 pork producers have taken advantage of the program and to date approximately 274 thousand dollars has been allocated.

Robyn Harte-Manitoba Agriculture Food and Rural Initiatives

The level of adoption has been not overwhelming, partly due to the fact that hog producers have had a pretty rough go of it in the last year so the thought of putting out even more money is just a bit taxing but we expect we'll see a constant number of producers taking part in the programme.

We find that the numbers we have to date and the constant application rate to be very heartening because we believe that this is going to in the long run be a very positive effect for the industry.

It makes it easier for employees to not have to worry about accidentally poking themselves, they don't have to worry about animals becoming very aggressive or frightened.

There's a lot information that shows using these needle-free guns is very easy on employees and it's also less stress and less pain for the animals so that's a very positive animal welfare issue that we like having addressed.

So we figure that constantly supplying this program until 2013 will be of benefit on those two fronts.

Harte notes the program is open to any producer in Manitoba certified under the Canadian Quality Assurance Programme.

She stresses producers must apply to the programme and receive their approval before purchasing the equipment.