The National Biosecurity Training Program was developed to provide Canadian pork producers the training that will help them improve biosecurity on their farms.

Saskatchewan Pork Development Board producer services manager Harvey Wagner says producer response in Saskatchewan has been exceptional.

Harvey Wagner-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board

97 per cent approximately of the eligible farms have participated and that accounts for somewhere just over 98 percent of production in Saskatchewan.

Factors would be, a lot of out farms are very conscious of biosecurity. We're blessed with distance and biosecurity and distance is a very handy thing.

You don't have that issue of cross contamination from other farms nearly as much as they do in other parts of the world.

Our farms do have a fairly high level of biosecurity inherently. They've worked toward maintaining the health of their breeding stock for the most part.

We are also the lucky repository of some of the best high health genetic nucleus farms in the world in Saskatchewan.

We have really good breeding stock companies readily available to stock our farms so health status in Saskatchewan is pretty high to start with so people are aware of that and pay attention to that and are concerned about it and they feel anything they can do to improve biosecurity is a benefit.

Mr Wagner says every farm, no matter what level of biosecurity they are currently at, sees things they can do to improve their biosecurity.

He says the National Biosecurity Training Program is a good refresher course for those who already have a high level of biosecurity and a good training course for those who's biosecurity levels aren't quite as high.