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SHIC Adds Influenza A Virus Monitoring Data to its Domestic Swine Disease Monitoring Report

The Associate Director of the Swine Health Information Centre reports statistics on the monitoring and detection of Influenza A virus have been added to the monthly domestic swine disease monitoring report.As part of its February eNewsletter the Swine Health Information Center has released its monthly domestic and global swine disease surveillance reports.

This month’s Domestic Swine Disease Monitoring Report, compiled through the Swine Disease Reporting System on behalf of the Swine Health Information Center, brings a new chart for weekly monitoring of Influenza A virus PCR detection.SHIC Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton says the newly implemented monitoring capability provides information about Influenza A detection enabling comparison to the historical trends.

Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Centre:

Influenza A is one of the top viral and health challenges that pig producers face.This was actually a request from stakeholders to be added to the reporting.
This is going to be looking at case submissions for Influenza A but also looking at different types over time of what is being submitted.

This can be used by veterinarians and producers to track, what is Influenza doing in their systems?Does it respond to vaccines or are vaccines appropriate and what age group is this occurring in?This is a very good addition of a pathogen that is still very active out in the industry and a lot of people will benefit from the continued monitoring.

Dr. Becton notes, the full domestic and global swine disease surveillance reports as well as archived reports and other swine health information can be accessed through the Swine Health Information Center's website at swinehealth.org. She also encourages stakeholders to sign up for SHIC's eNewsletter to receive monthly swine health information directly to their inboxes.

Source : Farmscape.ca

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Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators