Farmscape for December 29, 2023

The CEO of Farm Health Guardian says the use of GPS technology to track swine transport trailer movement is allowing near real time response to breaches in biosecurity protocols.
Farm Health Guardian in cooperation with the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board and the Canadian Agri-food Automation and Intelligence Network assessed the performance of various GPS tracking devices under real world conditions in rural Saskatchewan.
Farm Health Guardian CEO Rob Hannam says producers are aware of the importance of transport biosecurity, knowing where their vehicles are, where they've been and that biosecurity protocols are being followed.

Quote-Rob Hannam-Farm Health Guardian:
We went into the project thinking this is great if there's a disease investigation.
If we have a disease outbreak the vets can respond much quicker with digital data that's combined into a platform they can use.
But what we learned was it can be used proactively as well and actually alert people if the biosecurity protocols aren't followed even if there isn't an outbreak.
As our farms get bigger or as we're having new drivers drive our trucks or equipment or get new employees that are just learning about the business or learning about biosecurity, sometimes the rules don't always get followed.
It creates a training opportunity where you'll notice in advance that something isn't followed and you'll be able to correct that and make sure you put the training in place and you learn from that error and don't make it a second time.
It's time to watch this even more closely than you have been when it comes to transport biosecurity.
GPS technology can be a great way to do that because it not only helps you proactively see these issues before they become a problem but if there ever was an outbreak then you can respond much more quickly.
Our customers report that they can respond within minutes to outbreaks when it would have taken them hours or days to respond.
They can respond in minutes so we're getting close to real time response when they can use a technology like this.

Hannam notes the full report is accessible as a fee download through his company's web site at farmhealthhguardian.com.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers