The General Manager of Manitoba Beef Producers says two new provincial grants supporting the Bovine Tuberculosis prevention programs are something the industry has been looking forward to for some time. The programs focus on collecting data and supporting the on-farm risk assessment process within the Riding Mountain Eradication Area.
Brian Lemon explains how the grants will work.
He adds bTB within the RMEA has been a problem that the industry has been trying to tackle for about twenty years and says to have the province step-up support for the prevention programs will certainly help the effort and help producers understand where the risks are.
"One of the keys to the program, and to actually getting us over the hurdle and being able to say that Manitoba is free from Bovine Tuberculosis, is going to be the on-going monitoring of the cattle herd and then the efforts made to try and mitigate the opportunities where the cattle herd and the wildlife can interact."
Although Manitoba's herd has been bTB-free for about ten years now, Lemon explains that these programs remain important because the province's trading partners won't necessarily agree that the herd is clear of the highly contagious disease.
"We still have a pocket of geography (the RMEA) where we haven't been able to put together the data we need to convince our trading partners that it is completely gone from that area. And so what's happening right now is, if you're exporting live animals out of those areas you have to have them tested for TB before you can actually export."
Lemon says there is still a lot of work to be done to make sure that not only the domestic herd, but also the wildlife that are the source of the tuberculosis, are free of the disease as well. He adds it's been a long row to hoe for the Manitoba cattle industry which has worked hard over the years and with many partners including Agriculture Canada, CFIA, Manitoba Agriculture, Manitoba Sustainable Development, First Nations, the hunting community and Parks Canada.
Source : Portageonline