The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has ended a program which had allowed swine transport vehicles retuning from US farms to be washed and disinfected at Canadian wash facilities and as of May 2 is requiring those transports to be washed at US facilities before returning to Canada.

Rick Peters, the Vice President Operations with Steve's Livestock Transport, says the US has had significant issues with PED and forcing Canadian trucks to co-mingle with potential contaminated US trucks at US wash bays raises the risks.

Rick Peters-Steve's Livestock Transport:

My concern is the possibility of picking up unnecessary unwarranted viruses due to having to go to these US wash bays.

Their protocols are quite different than the protocols in Manitoba wash bays and in western Canadian wash bays.

The Canadian swine transport industry and, particularly the western Canadian swine transport industry, has responded very well to the threat of PED.

There's been a number of different things that have happened and that's increased biosecurity at the farms, the producers have increased their biosecurity, the way they train their staff.

There's also been an introduction of trailer baking bays built in Manitoba.

We've also put in undercarriage washes for livestock trailers.

We knew that that was a concern for a number of years and the undercarriage wash addresses that.
Another thing is we've increased our ongoing biosecurity training for drivers, not only increased it but we also provide ongoing training as well for them.

Peters says Steve's Livestock Transport is complying with the requirements but will be re-washing trailers in Canada.

He estimates the change will unnecessarily add three quarters of a million to a million dollars per year to his company's cost of washing and disinfecting swine transport trailers.