The Chair of Swine Innovation Porc says Canada's AgriScience Program delivered through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership has fostered a more national approach to agricultural research while encouraging greater collaboration and eliminating duplication.
Swine Innovation Porc is the brand name given to the federal research cluster for pork, pork products and swine production.
Swine Innovation Porc Chair Stewart Cressman explains under the program research funding collected through the provincial pork organizations is augmented by the federal government.
Clip-Stewart Cressman-Swine Innovation Porc:
What it has allowed the industry to do is to develop national priorities rather than the old approach of regional priorities.
There was times when there was duplication on similar priorities across different regions of Canada.
This allows national priorities to be developed and I think what it allows as well is a collaborative approach between researchers in different institutions leveraging their expertise in specific areas and developing collaboration between researchers and the idea of improving on a first name basis knowledge of one researcher to another, agriculture Canada researchers, swine researchers in different institutions and the ability to mentor entry level researchers and, at the end of the day, develop next generation individuals for the industry through masters students and PhDs and post-docs.
Cressman says the main goal of Swine Innovation Porc is to improve the productivity and efficiency of the swine sector as well as train next generation researchers and industry personnel and to encourage collaboration among researchers at different institutions.
Source : farmscape