Swine Innovation Porc Chair Stewart Cressman told Manitoba Pork’s 2018 producer meetings this fall one of
the priorities is to provide tools that will allow reduced use of antibiotics while maintaining productivity and efficiency.
Cressman, who is from Ontario, said research aimed at reducing antibiotic use while maintaining the health and productivity of the herd, is among the organization’s top priorities.
SIP administers research funding is provided through Canada’s pork organizations, pork sector stakeholders, and government.
“We know we’ll still have antibiotics available for the treatment of disease, but there are questions about this whole idea of prevention,” he said. “There’s a multi-prong effort as we look at using genetics, which has some separate initiatives, and more robustness through genetics. We have many projects on the microbiome, which is the microorganisms in the gut and looking at ensuring that the correct ones are there, because it has a big impact on the immune response of the young pig, so there are many efforts on that one.”
Cressman told the producers that SIP will look at some welfare projects that relate to transportation and loose sow housing and some emerging issues.
“As we see African Swine Fever move across Europe and move from farm to farm in China the question is, what can we do from a health perspective to improve biosecurity,” he said. “An agri-science project dedicated to health is also now under development.”
Cressman told producers Swine Innovation Porc is the brand name given to the federal research cluster for pork, pork products, and swine production. A federation of all the provincial pork organizations from the significant pork-producing provinces contributing funds, two and a half cents per market hog, into a pool of funds to leverage funding from the federal government to work on priorities for the industry.
“We have the privilege of determining those priorities, developing a research program based on what I call research pull, meaning that the industry determined the priorities rather than the research community,” he said. “We circulate those priorities, and the research community has the opportunity of putting ideas or proposals forward. Then our producer community will take those results and implement them in rapid succession.”
When asked how successful the research cluster approach to research is for the pork sector, Cressman said while somewhat biased, he has complimented the federal government for developing this initiative. They contribute significant funds to this and other commodities.
“It has allowed the industry to develop national priorities rather than the old approach of regional priorities. At times we’d see duplication on similar priorities across different regions of Canada,” he said. “This allows us to develop national priorities and collaborate between researchers and different institutions, leveraging their expertise in specific areas. And developing, I think, the collaboration between researchers and the idea of improving on a first name basis, knowledge of one researcher to another. Agriculture Canada researchers, swine researchers in different institutions, and the ability to mentor entry-level researchers.”
Cressman again thanked the federal government for this initiative and their continued funding. “As a pork organization, we rely on it quite heavily and continue to look forward to the results we generate from it.” •
— By Harry Siemens
