Manitoba Pork Initiative Strives to Find Solutions to Pattern of PED Outbreaks

Mar 21, 2022

Manitoba Pork has launched a new initiative aimed at addressing swine disease in an effort to break the cycle of major Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea outbreaks. In response to COVID-19 and the cycle of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea outbreaks, Manitoba Pork has established a value-chain working group to determine what needs to be done differently and come up with practical solutions to disease.

Cam Dahl, the General Manager of Manitoba Pork, observes, since PED first arrived in the province in 2014, we've seen a pattern of major outbreaks every two years and that just isn't sustainable.

Clip-Cam Dahl-Manitoba Pork:

We're really looking at what those practical solutions are, whether it's in communication of best management practices, whether it's in signage or how we need to communicate to service providers on the status of a farm and how they should be responding, to have those real practical outcomes on how we might break the cycle.

We seem to be in this two-year cycle. How do we break that? That is our goal, to look at what are some of the management practices in other jurisdictions, in the U.S. for example? Are they doing things differently that we can import here to Manitoba?

To have real practical outcomes is the goal. We're lucky that the value chain works really well together, whether it's the veterinarians and swine health specialists at the integrated operations like HyLife or Maple Leaf or the independent vets, our Chief Veterinary Officer.

We're all sitting down together with farmers to work on these solutions in a very collaborative way and work on these problems in a way that's looking at the best interests of the industry and really looking to have a consensus position across the sector at the end of the day.

Source : Farmscape

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.