Farmscape for January 26, 2015

A co director of the 2015 Banff Pork Seminar reports improved profitability within the Canadian pork industry helped boost attendance at this year's conference.
The 44th annual Banff Pork Seminar wrapped up Thursday.
Conference co director Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra says this year's event attracted 616 registrants, an increase of about 50 compared to 2014, and reflects the fact that the pork industry had a very profitable year and when you put money back into the pockets of pork producers they'll respond by attending this type of conference.

Clip-Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra-University of Alberta:
The top focus of the conference was adapting and evolving.
The industry keeps on changing.
We had some very interesting facts around this conference.
For example we're fully aware that every year there are fewer farmers but the fewer number of pork producers was really quite a bit further reduction compared to the average of the agricultural industry.
It just indicates that the industry is changing rapidly in how they're organized relative to number of pigs slaughtered because the number of pigs slaughtered actually did not change so much relative to the number of fewer hog producers that we have.
Another thing of course that keeps on changing is what is kind of the overall status relative to society and our relationship as a pork industry with society.
Can we operate as an industry like we always have been operating and we've seen some changes happening there and of course a big one was the Canadian Code of Practice that was adopted now that will address some of those concerns that people in society may have.

Dr. Zijlstra says, while the seminar will be moving to the Banff Springs Hotel next year, one of the things that will not change is making sure there is a strong program that contains topics that will be of interest to all segments of the industry and making sure there are still plenty of networking opportunities.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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