CQA Prepares for Phase Two of CFIA Recognition Process
Farmscape for July 19, 2004 (Episode 1561) Officials with the Canadian pork industry's on farm food safety initiative expect to begin, by this fall, phase two of the process that will lead to official federal recognition of the program. The Canadian Quality Assurance program was developed by the Canadian Pork Council to provide swine producers a mechanism to document their on farm food safety procedures. Earlier this month the program cleared the technical review phase of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recognition process, which endorsed the scientific soundness of the program and its HACCP model. National CQA Coordinator Dawn Lawrence says stakeholders are now working to finalize requirements for phase two of the process. Clip-Dawn Lawrence-Canadian Pork Council We are expecting one of the final drafts of this government criteria document for the administrative side of things to be out this fall. It will still need to go through some final approvals. We don't have a time line on this but we are working quite diligently. CFIA has been working on getting these drafts out to us for comment and we expect some movement this fall on that front. From a CQA perspective, we have developed a management system which is a requirement of this next phase. We will be doing comparisons between what the government criteria are and what we have within our system and seeing if it's necessary to make any adjustments to meet the government criteria, working with CFIA to evaluate our system and implementing an external audit process. We'll have an outside body coming in to look at our delivery mechanism and ensure we are doing everything as we should be. Lawrence says participation of the federal, provincial and territorial governments lends credibility to Canada's on farm food safety programs. She says the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is well known and well respected around the world and its stamp of approval will merit attention. For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane. *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council