Swine Health Board Calls for Industry Financial Support.

By Bruce Cochrane

The Canadian Swine Health Board is appealing to pork industry stakeholders to provide the core funding support that will allow its work to continue beyond 2013.

With funding provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada the Canadian Swine Health Board was created in 2009 to address porcine circovirus and develop strategies to address future swine disease issues.

Under the arrangement federal government funding will run out March 31, 2013.

Board chair Florian Possberg told to those on hand last week for the third Canadian Swine Health Forum the organization has made considerable progress but the need is ongoing.

Florian Possberg-Canadian Swine Health Board:

We've developed a biosecurity program for our herds across Canada which really creates a basis where we can improve the health of our herd.

We did basic research into swine diseases, we've calculated the economic costs of some of the things that affect our industry.

As well we've been able to fund some young researchers, post-doc people in our vet colleges across Canada that really form the next generation of researchers for our industry.

We've been quite successful I think in being good stewards of the resources granted to us.

The threats to our health stability in Canada is really on-going.

It'll never end.

As long as we have livestock production we will have disease challenges and of course we're a very significant part of food security in Canada so I don't think our work will ever end.

Whether the Swine Health Board is the vehicle to take that work forward, I'm very optimistic that will be the case, and with enough resources, we can continue to be very broad and innovative in how we support the health of our industry.