Vaccinating Canadian Pigs Against Endemic U.S. Diseases Benefits American Buyers

A Partner with Polar Pork says American buyers of Canadian pigs are asking for vaccination programs that will protect those pigs from the diseases they'll encounter once they arrive in the U.S. Last week an 11-member three generation delegation representing Humboldt based Polar Pork travelled to Des Moines for World Pork Expo to connect with fellow Canadian producers, U.S. producers and customers.Florian Possberg, a Partner with Polar Pork, says buyers in the U.S. are appreciative of the health of Canadian pigs but, once those pigs reach their destinations, they'll be exposed to higher concentrations of disease.

Quote-Florian Possberg-Polar Pork:

In Saskatchewan we've enjoyed a very stable health situation.We've been able to keep some of the very serious diseases out of Saskatchewan due to our very good biosecurity that we use. Not the case in the U.S.They've suffered very significant challenges with PRRS and PED and other quite serious diseases so that was a concern to them. Our healthy pigs can go down into the Midwest where there's a barn every mile and invariably some of the groups that go down will break with the local diseases.

That's always a concern to them so we took our Polar Pork veterinarian along with us to meet with the veterinarians of our customers down in the U.S. and they talked about, "is there possible vaccination programs that we can do in our sow herd here in Canada to protect our pigs for diseases that we don't actually have in here but will be challenged with in the U.S.If we can help our American buyers out by putting in place vaccination programs here in Canada, that is something that benefits them and makes our animals more desirable.

Possberg suggests that's the kind of cooperation that requires good communication and one on one contact.