The Rural Voice, 1982-09, Page 22FARM NEWS
Good animal health doubles production
By the year 2000, economists say
Canada can double its production of beef
and pork. That is the goal for livestock
found in Agriculture Canada's Agri -food
Strategy.
"That is an opportunity, not a guaran-
tee," emphasized Dr. G.I. Trant, the
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of the
Department. To achieve the goal, he
stressed all facets of agribusiness asso-
ciated with livestock will have to co-
operate.
Speaking on behalf of the new Agri-
culture Canada Deputy Minister, J.P.
Connell, Trant added that dairy and
poultry production should grow in res-
ponse to domestic population growth - by
about 30% by the year 2000.
"Some of the increased production will
come about by the addition of livestock
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PG. 22 THE RURAL VOICE/SEPTEMBER 1982
numbers," predicts Trant, "but a large
part will occur as a result of improve-
ments in output per animal."
Citing pork, he says efficiency is
improving by about three percent per year
from advances in breeding, management,
nutrition and health standards.
In the beef sector, the challenge may be
greater because, "production may move
to more margi:ial land as food grains
replace feed and forage production in
many area." Given the nation's land
resources, the department is confident
that the goal is realistic and achievable.
The real nucleus to success will be in
improvements to herd health, he con-
tended. "We would lose one half of our
livestock and poultry if it weren't for the
kinds of products that member companies
of the CAHI provide to the nations'
farmers!
"Even with the excellent overall health
of the national herd, we are losing about
$500 million a year to livestock diseases,"
added Trant. "1 think that everybody
concerned with the industry would agree
that the best long-term approach to herd
health is preventative medicine."
To this end, he told the animal health
experts that, while antibiotics will con-
tinue to play a vital role in animal health,
the real future lies in the development of
effective disease -preventing vaccines.
"The breakthroughs that have been
made in the past few years, with the
discovery of scours vaccines, and more
recently with a sub -unit foot and mouth
vaccine, and good examples of what can
be done with the new tools of biotech-
nology."
Update on OFAAP
Donald C. MacDonald, the Agriculture
and Food Critic gave a speech recently at
the NDP picnic. In his speech he brought
the farmers up to date on the success of
the Ontario Farm Adjustment Assistance
Program (OFAAP).
This program was designed to help
around 5,000 farmers with a $60 million
budget.
To date, there have been 1,118 farmers
accepted under either the interest defferal,
interest rebate or government guaranteed
lines of credit. The total for six months
runs between $13 and $14 million dollars.
This excludes the administration cost of
this program. To use the original $60
million allocated to this program, there
will need to be a large number accepted in
the next six months.