Mandatory reporting of pig movement starts in July.
“Any movement of pigs that is on a road must be reported to a centralized database, both at shipping and receiving,” said Jeff Clark, national manager of the Canadian Pork Council’s Pig Trace program.
It is part of a national traceability scheme to keep track of livestock in the event of disease or other natural disaster. The pork industry is the first to launch national movement reporting for domestic, import and export travel.
“The pig industry will be taking the first leap into a national reporting system,” Clark said. “In the pig industry, we have an information platform that can be used across commodities.”
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The program will be launched in January to build awareness and becomes law July 1.
Pig Trace is a national movement document that requires source and destination locations, number of pigs transported, vehicle license plate, date and time of shipping and official identification such as tattoo numbers.
Farmers will need to get premise identification numbers from their home provinces as soon as possible.
The program aims to provide animal health and food safety officials with the best possible information regarding pig identification and movement by requiring anyone handling pigs to report movement information within seven days.
For more information, contact the provincial pork association or visit www.pigtrace.ca.
