cattle in a pasture

Beef 911: Cattlemen can ensure biosecurity on the ranch

Maintaining a few simple precautions can minimize the risk of disease outbreaks

Biosecurity refers to protecting the health of our livestock by preventing disease transmission. The extreme happened many years ago now regarding the spread of foot-and-mouth through Britain. A more likely example would be the spread of scours from farm to farm or from pen to pen within the farm itself. This article will try and

man holding crank-powered radio in Africa

Radio programs help improve crops in Africa

Farm Radio International broadcasts information relevant to farmers throughout Africa

Japhet Emmanuel was 10 years old when his father introduced him to radio. This was the best way to learn English, assured his father. So every evening the young Tanzanian man would sit next to the small black radio listening to the one English program. “BBC World Service,” he deepened his voice to sound like


Oriental fruit fly

A destructive crop pest with many different names

The finding is expected to help with international biosecurity and control

A global research effort has finally resolved a major biosecurity issue: four of the world’s most destructive agricultural pests are actually one and the same. For 20 years, some of the world’s most damaging pest fruit flies have been almost impossible to distinguish from each other. The ability to identify pests is central to quarantine,

piglets

High mortality in latest PEDv outbreak

Lapses in biosecurity are proving costly

Porcine epidemic diarrhea has spread to a fifth Manitoba hog barn with devastating effects. “They’re seeing high mortality rates, in the order of 70 to 80 per cent in some cases,” said Andrew Dickson, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council. “In the feeders barns, they’ve noticed it because it’s hurt production a bit… whereas


Pigs

PEDv either a boom or bust for weanling producers

Staying clean means the difference between 
heaven or hell

For weanling producers in Manitoba, the devastation wrought by porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) elsewhere has a very silvery lining. As their counterparts south of the border and in Eastern Canada haul dead piglets out of their barns by the wheelbarrow, the industry here is getting $90-$100 per head for isoweans and up to $135 for

Sleeping piglet.

Manitoba pork industry to step up PEDv fight

Outbreak in Ontario heightens risk that virus deadly to piglets could spread to Western Canada

All sectors of Manitoba’s pork industry are being urged to step up their vigilance and biosecurity measures especially regarding transportation, now that Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) has been detected in Ontario. Last Friday the Manitoba Pork Council held a town hall-style conference call aimed at keeping the industry abreast of the situation. Chairman Karl


PED is a virus spread by fecal matter, and when a swine herd is infected, 70 to 100 per cent of newborn piglets typically die. FILE PHOTO

Deadly new hog disease has officials on high alert

Deadly new hog disease has officials on high alert Keeping an emerging and devastating swine disease out of Manitoba will require a team effort, says the Manitoba Pork Council’s point man on the issue. That means truckers, gathering yards, and farmers need to work together to keep Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) out of the province,

Veteran civil servant made his mark during the BSE crisis

Brian Evans retires from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

After ages as the federal government’s public face of food safety, Brian Evans has taken a well-earned retirement, but not the quiet kind. In addition to being the country’s chief veterinary officer and chief food safety officer, Evans was the government’s main spokesman during the 2003 BSE crisis. But the biggest food safety event was


National biosecurity standard for cattle completed

Biosecurity plans started in Canada as the result of avian influenza, but have now spread to all sectors

Just in time for Christmas, the Beef Cattle On-Farm Biosecurity Standard is complete and available online for that hard-to-please bovine on your gift list. And if all goes to plan, an owner’s version should by ready by then, too. “The standard has been published. We’re still working on a producer’s manual that will be an

Swine dysentery is back and in a new strain

For years it has been absent from western Canadian hog barns, but now swine dysentery is back in Canadian and American herds. “From my understanding it was in the mid-1990s when classical swine dysentery, brachyspira hydosenteriae, sort of went off the radar,” Joe Rubin told the 2012 Canadian Swine Health Forum in Winnipeg last week.