The 2013 Banff Pork Seminar concluded another strong year of topics, speaker and attendance, all geared to support the industry with knowledge to build a successful future, reports Meristem Land and Science.

Ruurd Zijlstra, BPS programme director

"The reason we have Banff Pork Seminar is two-fold," recapped Ruurd Zijlstra, BPS program director, in his closing remarks. "First of all, to learn and the second reason is to network. Some of the things we've learned this week to deal with the challenge of change include economics, animal welfare, feed trade and other key issues. More change in our industry can be expected and we need to make progress in all of these areas to succeed."

On the networking side, continual improvement of the conference format to create the best possible environment for networking is the goal, he said. "If you compare how we organised the conference this year compared to last year, we made some very significant changes based on the feedback we received. What I'm really looking forward to again is some input to further improve for next year.

"It has been a great Seminar for 2013. Always looking for ways to get better is the key to maintaining the role of this Seminar as a top event of its kind to support the pork industry," Dr Zijlstra concluded.