Swine sector research, funded through producer-government partnerships is helping reduce disease, improve animal nutrition and fine-tune meat quality while also providing a substantial return on investment. The report, "From Research to Results: Measuring the Impact of Pork Research in Canada," released by the University of Saskatchewan, looks at national swine research funded through partnerships involving Swine Innovation Porc.
Dr. Stuart Smyth, a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Saskatchewan and one of the authors, says the report looks at work involved over 200 researchers from Alberta to Nova Scotia.
Quote-Dr. Stuart Smyth-University of Saskatchewan:
We classified the research as to falling into a number of key sectors, the lead ones being looking at the health of livestock, so how to reduce the presence of diseases. Also looking at the nutrition side of things, how can the nutritional profile of feed going into swine be improved.Looking at the quality of the pork then that gets processed.
There was also a significant component looking at the animal welfare side of things and then some additional on the technology and some the building structures for different environmental requirements. That was the broad overview of what was undertaken.We had examined this over the period from 2010 to 2023 and during that 14-year period we identified that about 50 million dollars was invested in research across the country which generated around 225 million dollars in economic benefits, generating a return on investment of about 30 percent.So, a pretty significant economic contribution to both the provincial and national economies.
Dr. Smyth estimates the average hog farm invested about 18 hundred dollars per farm over the period and that produced a return for those farms just shy of nine thousand dollars.He says that works out to an eight to one ratio or eight dollars returned for every dollar invested.The report can be accessed through Swine Innovation Porc.
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Source : Farmscape.ca