Canadian Beef Sector Bolstered by Biosecurity Standard

National On-Farm Biosecurity Standard Released

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

On-farm biosecurity is an important risk tool that farmers and ranchers utilize as a preventive measure to reduce the transmission of diseases. The announcement made by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) Canada’s beef sector will be strengthened with a new national biosecurity standard.

"On-farm biosecurity is one of the front lines of prevention for managing the risk of animal diseases for cattle producers," said CCA president Martin Unrau.

The standard has been a working process for two years meeting completion August 2012. The consultation process involved a number of stakeholders including, cattle producers, industry organizations such as CCA, academic researchers and provincial governments input. With the variety of advice from all those involved, the biosecurity standard is really representative of the entire Canadian beef industry and is applicable to all types and sizes of beef cattle operations. The process was made possible by funding made available through the Growing Forward program by the federal government.

"Employing practices that contribute to the health of the industry and the animals on farm makes good sense,” says Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

The new biosecurity standard will assist beef producers in their day-to-day operation in managing biosecurity risk on their farms. Although, many of the practices outlined in the standard are already practiced on cattle farms across Canada, the standard acts as an important reference to beef cattle ranchers so that they can measure their biosecurity risks and practices. This important tool will not only help beef farmers with management practices, but the standard will also bring unity to Canada’s beef cattle industry.