The Rural Voice, 1997-06, Page 40six producers, representatives of the
packers, feed companies and
OMAFRA, it has taken along time to
design a system that does the job
without being unmanageable for
producers.
"It's been a real eye-opener to
have everybody in the same room
and learn stuff isn't simple," says
Doug Richards, pork adviser with the
Clinton OMAFRA office, who is on
the committee. "You see that
something you do at one level has
ripples through the whole industry."
The problems of understanding,
even at the producer level,
took time to overcome. Linton,
for instance, recalls the proposal by
one of the other producers who had a
finisher operation. He proposed that
every injection carried out on a pig
should be recorded. For a finisher,
that's a simple enough task but
Linton, as a farrow -to -finish
operator, knew that every pig in
every litter gets at least an iron shot
and the paperwork for farrowing
operators would have been
prohibitive.
"If you make it easy enough,
people will do the right thing," says
Linton of the ground -rules.
Richards agrees. "The challenge is
to make the program simple enough
that the producer will do it but not
water it down so much it doesn't
mean anything," he
says.
The program that
has been designed for
farm use involves only
a few forms and
requires very little time
once the initial setup is
done. "Even if the
export market says they
no longer want it
(quality assurance) we
should continue to do
it," says Richards.
"Anything that we can
do to enhance the
quality makes our
bottom line better."
As well as focusing
on administered drugs,
the QAP pilot project has studied the
feeds producers are using. In
consultation with the herd
nutrititonist, the producer has to fill
in a form. Feed has been tests d for
protein and salt levels. For the pilot
project, even the particle size of the
feed was tested. If medication is
being included in the finisher ration,
the herd veterinarian must sign off
that the proper withdrawal period is
being met.
For participants in the
pilot project even the water
source is being tested.
Water is being sampled for
level of nitrates. The
history of the well is
recorded. In areas where
water is taken from a pond
or lake, the levels of
chlorine used to purify the
water are measured.
Despite what sounds like
a lot of paperwork, Linton
says the extra work hasn't
been burdensome. "I think
it's taken me a couple of
hours the first time," he
estimates.
To help program part-
icipants, a series of half-day
workshops were conducted across the
irovince to familiarize producers
with the requirements. Linton says
the effectiveness of the tests is being
evaluated to find out which ones
Doug Richards
Decisions cause ripples.
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