Farmscape for December 15, 2004  (Episode 1669)

The Canadian Pork Council says swine producers will get their first look at a newly developed "Animal Care Assessment Tool", designed to become part of the Canadian Quality Assurance program, early in the new year.

The Animal Care Assessment Tool was developed by a working group which included swine researchers, hog producers, representatives of producer organizations and representatives of government.

It's modeled after the Canadian Quality Assurance Program and will ultimately become a component of that program.

Canadian Pork Council Executive Associate Catherine Scovil says the assessment tool is now complete and will be made available to hog producers in early 2005.

Clip-Catherine Scovil-Canadian Pork Council 

The assessment tool is really a mechanism for producers to be able to demonstrate to their buyers what it is they're doing on hog farms to ensure good care of the animals.

In many terms it's very much like we've done with food safety.

Our CQA program is an on farm food safety program that helps producers demonstrate what they're doing on farm to ensure they promote the production of safe food.

This would be a parallel program that shows what producers are doing on farm to take care of the animals.

The tool is ready to be released and we expect it to available to hog producers early in 2005.

We are working on an action plan that will detail exactly how the program goes out, what are the precise linkages with our Canadian Quality Assurance program, how we're going to train our validators, those kinds of things, but we certainly want the tool to be available next year.

Scovil says the development and implementation of the Animal Care Assessment Tool is considered a key element in strengthening the competitiveness of Canadian agriculture.

She says the assessment tool, in conjunction with food safety programs and other initiatives, help demonstrate what Canadian producers are doing on farm.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council