By Bruce Cochrane
The chair of the National Farm Animal Care Council's Pig Code Development Committee is confident Canada's new Pig Code of Practice will help boost the international marketing position for Canadian pork.
Canada's updated Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs, released last month, contains key changes in the areas of housing for gestating sows, pain relief during painful procedures and space allowance for pigs.
Florian Possberg, the chair of the National Farm Animal Care Council's Pig Code Development Committee, says the reaction of producers, animal welfare groups and the retail sector to the new code has been positive.
Florian Possberg-Pig Code Development Committee:
Because it's a sound well thought out process it's something that we can use to promote our level of welfare that we use in Canada.
It's a very reasonable well thought out process and it's one that really focuses on the welfare of the animals and the practicality of the producers to treat the animals well so I think it really puts us in a good place in terms of both domestic marketing and international marketing.
And by the way this process is unique to Canada.
Some jurisdictions it's been top down where legislators have imposed their view of what animal welfare should be in their jurisdiction.
In some places it seems like it's a war between animal activists and producers.
I think in Canada we've got a system where we use science, we use various interest groups best interest and, at the end of the day, I think in Canada we come to a place where our animals are much better off for our very sound system that we use.
Possberg suggests we can be proud of the code of practice process we have in Canada for all of the major species of animal agriculture.
Source: Farmscape