Cooperation Among Swine Research Institutions Eases COVID Disruptions

Farmscape for November 29, 2021

The Past-Chair of Swine Innovation Porc is applauding the efforts of Canadian swine research institutions to minimise disruptions resulting from actions intended to minimise the spread of COVID.
Swine Innovation Porc, Canada's national swine research partnership, released its 2020-2021 annual report last month.
Stewart Cressman, the Past-Chair of Swine Innovation Porc, says, while protocols designed to reduce the spread of COVID have disrupted research programs, researchers from different institutions have been communicating and working together.

Clip-Stewart Cressman-Swine Innovation Porc:
There was great collaboration between researchers in terms of working with one another.
In a lot of cases researchers are competitors for research dollars but, in this case, what happened was because Swine Innovation often has part of a project done in one institution and another part is done in a second institution across country, there was a willingness to send samples across the country because one lab was set up.
They say, your lab has been shut down for this reason or that reason with COVID, we can do your samples here at Guelph or at Prairie Swine or at University of Alberta.
That was very encouraging to see and it allowed these projects to continue on in a more defined pathway.

Cressman says collaboration is everything.
He says the pork industry isn't as blessed as other commodities with a large war chest of private funding so researchers are compelled to find other sources of funding that will leverage the Agriculture Agri-Food Canada funding.
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Bruce Cochrane.


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