An industry wide task force has begun the review of research proposals submitted for funding under the Swine Health Information Center's Wean-to-Harvest Biosecurity Program.
The Wean-to-Harvest Biosecurity Research Program, funded by the Swine Health Information Center, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and the Pork Checkoff was undertaken to support the development of cost-effective ways to improve on-farm and transport biosecurity during the wean-to-harvest phase of pork production.
Swine Health Information Center Associate Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder says the second call for proposals attracted a diverse range of submissions.
Clip-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:
We have formed an industry-wide proposal review task force.This includes pork producers, veterinarians, academic researchers, allied industry personnel and we have formed that review task force to start reviewing those proposals with the idea of prioritising and reviewing those proposals with regards to value to the pork producers.
There's also aspects of looking at the likelihood of success of the project, if that project could indeed achieve those objectives that are defined, also looking at evaluating the health status of the herd and outcome effectiveness, the justification of both the budget as well as the time frames.That review task force is currently reviewing those proposals.
Those will be ranked based on those criteria and the task force will recommend proposals for funding that will go back as a recommendation to the Swine Health Information Center Board of Directors, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research as well as the Pork Checkoff to ultimately decide which proposals are funded and which projects are initiated.
Dr. Niederwerder expects funding decisions to be made by the end of this month. Further details can be accessed through the Swine Health Information Center web site at swinehealth.org.
Source : Farmscape.ca