By Bruce Cochrane
The President and CEO of the Prairie Swine Centre says the improving working conditions within the barn has become a priority of the pork sector as it strives to attract workers.
The Saskatoon based Prairie Swine Centre, owned and operated the University of Saskatchewan, is celebrating 25 years of research conducted on behalf of the pork sector.
The core areas of research include nutrition, engineering and behavior and, in collaboration with research partners, includes areas such as animal welfare, environmental sustainability and vaccine development.
Lee Whittington, the President and CEO of the Prairie Swine Centre, says the big difference is 25 years ago the focus was trying to find ways to save 50 cents on every pig or getting another third of a pig per litter where as the work today extends beyond that.
Lee Whittington-Prairie Swine Centre:
I think the most important thing when we walk into the barn every day is the health and safety of our people and the health and well being of our animals.
When I see what the priorities are for our people, it's to be able to set an example and to be able to produce the kind of environment in the barn that encourages people to want to make a career in the barn, ensuring that they have a healthy work place to work in.
Those are areas that, if we had had this conversation 25 years ago, I'm not sure would have come up because at that time we used to spend on average three hours in the barn.
Our people are in the barns now seven or eight hours a day.
We've changed the environment.
We've got to make sure that we've come up with enough not only protocols but, what are we doing to build the kind of environment that people want to come to and bring their talents to our industry.
Whittington says the mandate of the Prairie Swine Centre is still to provide applied research but the clientele is now much broader and includes the manure applicators, the transporters, the packing plants and now many conversations involve the retailers.
Source: Farmscape