Disease dangers are so high in the minds of pig farmers and veterinarians that the Canadian Swine Health Forum tried to give everyone there a jab.
“We have organized a flu clinic,” said Canadian Swine Health Board executive director Robert Harding as he opened the forum Wednesday morning.
“If you haven’t been able to get your flu shot yet, this is a good time. The timing is right and it’s in the support of protecting our herd.”
It wasn’t the herd of farmers and vets that he was talking about, but the pigs back in the barns across Canada that the humans oversee. Influenza can jump the “species barrier” from humans to pigs, and vice versa, and industry players don’t want to be the cause of a new outbreak of human-swine influenza forming.
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The forum is an annual day-and-a-half long series of presentations and discussions about pig diseases and health.
Swine health board chair Florian Possberg said the increasing number of attendees, up to 175 this year from a previous average of 130 to 140, “told me a lot about the engagement of our industry for health.”
The hog industry is a multibillion-dollar industry across Canada, with millions of slaughter hogs produced annually supporting a number of major packing plants in cities, with sow barns producing weanlings for farmers across North America, and with pork supplying hundreds of food processors.
It is also an industry in deep crisis, with massive losses hitting many farmers as high feedgrain prices and weak pork prices collapsing margins deeply into the red.
Possberg, the founder and former operator of bankrupt Big Sky Farms in Humboldt, Sask., noted the financial crisis while highlighting the importance of veterinary rigour.
“We do know we are in challenging times, but the last thing you want is also to face health challenges, so our work here is really important.”
