Pork Producers Seek Government Help in Expanding Truck Washing Capacity

April 30, 2014 — 

Manitoba's pork producers are hoping for federal and provincial government help to expand the province's truck washing capacity. The Office of Manitoba's Chief Veterinary Officer has confirmed the presence of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus at a high-traffic site in western Manitoba, bringing the total number of high-traffic or environmental sites that have tested positive to eight. Andrew Dickson, the general manager of Manitoba Pork estimates 40 to 50 trucks per week returning from the U.S. need to be washed but that number will increase dramatically if we have to start washing all of the trucks moving pigs within the province. [Source: Farmscape for April 29, 2014]

Clip- Andrew Dickson-Manitoba Pork Council: The trucking industry is trying to build some additional wash capacity in Brandon and in eastern Manitoba. In some cases they're going to try and refurbish some of the sites that are being used for other vehicular traffic. But we're also hoping that we can get some financial assistance for these facilities from the federal and provincial government to be able to improve our capacity to wash and disinfect. The key thing here is virus doesn't just happen in pigs. It's brought onto the farm and so if we can cut out the potential for transportation to be contaminated then we significantly reduce the threat to individual farms. I should emphasise that it's critical that farmers treat with suspicion all the vehicles coming onto their property, especially if they've been coming from things like assembly yards. They have to start thinking of these sites being contaminated even though they're trying to do the best to make sure they aren't and they should take the right protocols to make sure that the trailers coming on their farm are clean.

Dickson stresses it's cheaper to wash these trucks than to allow the disease to spread and not have the production to take advantage of the current strong prices.