Manitoba Pork is speaking out following a barn fire earlier this month near New Bothwell, MB which claimed the life about 3,500 hogs.
Manager of Sustainable Development Mike Teillet says accidents do occur and the industry will continue to look at ways to prevent barn fires.
"It's very tragic obviously when a hog barn fire occurs. They are relatively rare events given the number of barns that we have in the system. We have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,500 or 1,600 barns out there. So they don't occur all that often and we certainly are very concerned about it and do everything we can, within reason, to try to insure that barns don't catch fire."
He notes Manitoba Pork has never opposed a reasonable farm building code.
"Prior to 2011, there were no building codes in Manitoba that applied to farm buildings," said Teillet. "Manitoba Pork along with some other farm organizations did work with the government over the years to develop a reasonable farm building code and we certainly are not opposed to a building code, in fact we have been in favour of a reasonable building code from the beginning."
Source : Portageonline