Pork industry needs national disease management plan

Canadian hog producers need to get behind a national plan designed to minimize the economic and social impact on the industry if there ever is an outbreak of a contagious animal disease, the president of the Canadian Pork Council (CPC) has told an industry conference.

Producers need to be making emergency plans in their own provinces and on their own farms to manage a foreign animal disease outbreak, such as the avian flu outbreak, which wreaked havoc with the B.C. poultry industry in 2004, Clare Schlegel, CPC president told a session of the Banff Pork Seminar, this week.

"The hog industry needs to work with other sectors of the livestock industry and federal and provincial governments to get a Foreign Animal Disease management strategy in place,‰ said Schlegel. "Producers need to be thinking about it and pressing their provincial associations to be actively involved."

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, working with all industry players through the Canadian Animal Health Coalition, is working on a management plan to be in place in the event of a foreign animal disease outbreak such as foot-and-mouth disease.

One important element of the plan is to divide Canada into at least two major zones and perhaps smaller zones that can be locked down within a matter of hours in the event of a disease outbreak in a specific area. The plan calls for using the Manitoba/Ontario border as the dividing line for the major east and west zones.

If a contagious disease were to be discovered on a Saskatchewan farm, for example, a lockdown would immediately be imposed on the movement of all livestock west of the Manitoba/Ontario border in a bid to contain the outbreak to the smallest possible area and prevent spread into Eastern Canada.

"The future of the Canadian industry depends on having an effective plan in place," said Schlegel. "Canada is the world's largest exporter of pork, and ships millions of live animals into the U.S. market annually. We have a built a reputation over the years as suppliers of safe, high quality, healthy animals and products. We risk losing all that in the event of a disease outbreak."

The impact of a foreign animal disease outbreak would be significant on the industry and the Canadian economy even if a limited outbreak was successfully contained to a relatively small geographic area.

The Canadian Animal Health Coalition has estimated containing a small outbreak that might affect 50 farms in a local area could result in about $13 billion in losses, a medium sized outbreak as much as $25 billion in losses and a large scale outbreak as much as $45 billion.

"A large scale outbreak would be like locking down all of Eastern Canada for weeks to contain the disease and remove all affected animals," said Schlegel. "Experience in other parts of the world has shown managing a disease outbreak has a broad impact on the whole economy affecting many sectors other than agriculture, including tourism."

Canada has been fortunate over the past 40 years not to have any cases of a contagious foreign animal disease in pork. All other major pork producing countries either have had or are dealing with diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, swine vesicular disease, hog cholera, African swine fever and pseudorabies.

"Our success in large part is due to Canada's animal health import measures and the implementation of sound barn design and through biosecuirty practices which have been widely adopted by Canadian swine producers," said Schlegel. "But it is probably also due to some good luck. We cannot simply assume that we will be so successful for the next 40 years."

Along with defining lockdown zones and developing the management details on how to contain and eradicate a disease outbreak, Schlegel said an important part of the process is to develop an adequate compensation package for affected producers. Several options are being considered.

"It is important that producers know if there is an outbreak they will be properly compensated for their losses to ensure they provide full compliance and co-operation with control measures," he said.

The Banff Pork Seminar is co-ordinated by the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Sciences, University of Alberta, in co-operation with Alberta Pork, Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development and other pork industry representatives. This year's Seminar played host to more than 700 delegates from throughout North America and Europe.

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