The federal government is investing $6 million in Canada’s sheep and goat industry to help with disease eradication, enhance traceability and improve on-farm food safety practices.
“As Canada begins to show signs of economic recovery, the Government of Canada knows that the sheep and goat industry can deliver tremendous returns as it already brings in over $100 million to the farm gate,” Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said in a release.
The AgriFlexibility fund, a commitment under Canada’s Economic Action Plan, will spend $4.5 million to determine the prevalence of scrapie. This information will help establish a time frame in which scrapie can be eradicated from Canada and international markets can be reopened.
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The remainder of the investment of more than $1.5 million will go towards the following three projects:
$733,000 will support the Canadian Sheep Federation’s pilot project to have a select number of producers implement full-scale Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to demonstrate the benefits RFID can provide to the industry.
$491,000 will help the Canadian National Goat Federation and the Canadian Sheep Federation to foster education within the industry on identification and traceability of goats and sheep. It will also be used to further the work done on the Canadian Sheep Federation’s Canadian Sheep
Identification Program.
$354,000 will support the Canadian Sheep Federation in the development of their On-Farm Food Safety Management System. This is the last step in the federation’s on-farm food safety system which could lead to government recognition of their Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP)-based system.
