The National Swine Biosecurity Training programme is based on the national farm level biosecurity standard developed by the Canadian Swine Health Board and has been launched in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba and it is being rolled out across the rest of country this summer.

The programme is being coordinated nationally through the board and is being delivered provincially by the provincial pork organisations.

Dr Brad Chappell, with Swine Health Professionals in Steinbach and a member of the Canadian Swine Health Board Biosecurity Advisory Committee, says the programme has been divided into three steps.

Dr Brad Chappell – Swine Health Professionals

The veterinarians within the province of Manitoba had to attend an afternoon meeting and training session to become certified on the programme.

Then the veterinarians are able to go back to their practices, contact their clientele and then the veterinary practices are able to organize meetings for their producers.

The producers attend a approximately a three-hour training session and then at the end of the training session they go home and do a biosecurity self-assessment for their particular site.

After the self assessment has been completed they will contact their herd health veterinarian and the herd health veterinarian will then arrange a farm visit to assess their biosecurity.

Currently where we're at is that the veterinarians have been certified and approximately 150 producers have attended the training sessions where the veterinarians have their customers come in for their biosecurity training.

The next step is we're just starting to have some of the veterinary visits to the farms to assess the biosecurity.

The goal for the programme is to have the veterinary visits completed by 31 December of this year.