Resources available to help Manitoba barn workers manage stress over PED

Jul 19, 2017

The province has experienced 59 PED cases so far this year

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Manitoba Pork wants members to know resources are available for anyone experiencing stress as a result of the increasing number of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) cases.

“I am looking at creating a one pager for the employees that, if they need help, if they’re feeling distressed, if they’re feeling uncomfortable, if they’re suffering from the emotional trauma of what’s going on, there’s help out there,” Janice Goldsborough, human resources and training coordinator with Manitoba Pork, told Farmscape on July 18.

There are also mental health tips in Chop Talk, Manitoba Pork’s internal paper. The organization is seeking advice from Klinic, Manitoba Farm and Rural Support Services, and Mental Health Manitoba, Goldsborough said.

Since May 2017, there have been 59 confirmed cases of PED across the province, mostly in southeastern Manitoba.

The rise in PED cases is alarming to members of the pork community.

“It caught us off-guard,” Andrew Dickson, general manager of Manitoba Pork Council, told The Canadian Press on July 10. “We had a total of 10 cases in three years, so that’s what’s throwing us off for a loop … What happened this year that we’ve suddenly got (more than) 50?”

Manitoba Pork hosted a telephone town hall meeting on July 19 to provide updates on PED situation.

Farms.com will bring you the details of the town hall once they become available.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed the first case of the disease in Canada in January 2014 on an Ontario farm. The disease has also been discovered in Quebec and Prince Edward Island.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.