On the Canadian farm landscape, biosecurity systems call up images of strict rules around who can enter the confined space of a chicken or hog barn and under what conditions.
The cattle industry, far less confined and intense, soon will have its own biosecurity rules but they will be voluntary and implemented only at the speed industry wants.
Unless, of course, some industry sectors including foreign markets or insurance companies decide they will deal only with cattle that have been in the biosecurity system and have the paperwork to prove it.
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That was the basic message to Canadian Cattlemen’s Association members at their annual general meeting last week in Ottawa as a consultant hired on contract by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to lead development of the biosecurity standard explained the project.
The plan is to have a standard and a manual developed by the end of the year for cattle and by 2013 for other livestock species, Matt Taylor told the CCA animal health and meat inspection committee March 9.
“It is all guidelines,” he said. “It is not regulatory.”
It will include recommendations on minimizing commingling of animals with other herds or wildlife, trying to restrict unauthorized human contact with a herd, trying to make sure trucks carrying animals are clean and that ranch equipment being used for multiple purposes is not a source of contamination for animals through their feed.
Taylor said a key requirement is that livestock producers keep records of their efforts to protect their animals from contamination or disease.
There will be a manual on best practices for producers to study and a recommendation on signage to keep unauthorized visitors, including hunters, away from herds in pastures.
But while he returned regularly to the message that there is no intention by government to make the system mandatory, he said it could become a market advantage for producers embracing the rules once they are developed.
“It is unlikely to provide direct returns from the marketplace,” said Taylor. “But this could be an individual asset down the road. It is not a stretch of the imagination to think this could be a requirement of trade in the future or a requirement for some kinds of insurance.”
The CCA has been co-operating and Taylor returned regularly to the theme that through on-farm consultations in all provinces but Saskatchewan and talks with the industry, proposals for voluntary biosecurity practices are being developed. Farm site visits in Saskatchewan have not yet been arranged, but he said it is more a question of circumstance than the province’s opposition.
