George Matheson, the Chair of Manitoba Pork says pork producers are looking for more clarity as dates approach for final changes to Canada’s new Pig Code of Practice and its incorporation into the Canadian Pork Excellence program.

A delegation representing Manitoba Pork traveled to Guelph recently to take part in Ontario Pork’s 2017 Annual General Meeting.

Canadian Pork Excellence, the Canadian pork industry’s new on-farm food safety and animal care assurance program, is in the pilot testing phase, the last step before national introduction. Matheson said there are still some outstanding questions with regards to housing gestating sows.

“The main issue in the Pig Code of Practice debated was sow loose housing. They’ve put a deadline of 2024 for a change for moving from gestation stalls to loose housing but there’s also a stipulation put in there that, by 2019, suitable alternatives would be discussed and entered into the code,” he said. “So producers want lots of discussion in regards to what will be expected of them and what they can do. They’re very much concerned and feel that animal care is very important, that they are the ones on the front lines, they will be the ones making the changes, and they will be the ones working with the changes. So they want to be consulted before this becomes regulation.”

Matheson said pork producers are looking for more clarity in terms of what they can expect when it comes to final changes to the Pig Code of Practice.

“Time tends to fly pretty quickly, the code was developed three years ago and we’re only two years away from 2019 and the general feeling is we have to make preparations now,” he said. Manitoba Pork expects pilot testing and final revisions to Canadian Pork Excellence to be completed in time for the first official validations by January of next year.

Mark Fynn, the Manager of Quality Assurance and Animal Care Programs with Manitoba Pork said pilot testing of the Canadian Pork Council’s new on-farm food safety and animal care assurance program began early this month on 80 plus farms across Canada.

Fynn told those attending Manitoba Pork’s 2017 District Advisors Winter Meeting recently Canadian Pork Excellence amalgamates the food safety assurance, animal care assurance and pig traceability programs. “To deal with food safety we have to understand that there are new expectations from our global marketplace,” he said. “There’s a big push globally to really standardize how food safety certification programs are handled, to look at it under one standard and so we developed this program with those things in mind so that we could assure our global markets and our domestic markets that we’re meeting a high global standard and provide that continuous food safety assurance that Canadian pork has always provided.” He said for the animal care assurance program they’ve incorporated all the requirements that were laid out in the 2014 Pig Code of Practice.

“We see that as a document that really strikes a balance on what the animal care expectations should be and develop that with the group that was around the Code of Practice table,”

Fynn said. “We see that as a very important step to maintain public trust and ensure that all pigs across the country that are on our assurance programs are actually meeting a standard that the Canadian public can be happy about.” Fynn said the goal is to finish the pilot testing by May, complete revisions to the program this summer and distribute finalized program materials to producers this fall, in time for the first official validations under the revised program in January. •

— By Harry Siemens