Québec, Quebec - Canada’s hog sector, which includes over 8000 hog farms, is a key driver of the Canadian economy, accounting for $4.5 billion in farm receipts and $4 billion in pork exports in 2017.
Parliamentary Secretary Jean-Claude Poissant, on behalf of Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Lawrence MacAulay, today announced investments of over $1.5 million to support animal health and disease surveillance in the hog sector.
The Government will invest up to $1.5 million in the Canadian Pork Council (CPC) to adopt a virus detection system to support animal health. Funded under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership’s AgriAssurance Program, the virus detection system will enable the CPC to provide consistent information on the health status of the hog population across the country, track early disease warning signs, and rapidly identify new and emerging diseases in the sector before they spread.
This complements a previous investment of more than $94,000 to the University of Montréal (UdeM) to develop an advanced disease surveillance tool to enable faster threat detection across Canada. With funding under Growing Forward 2’s AgriMarketing Program (Assurance Systems stream), the surveillance model developed by the UdeM’s Diagnostic Services will enable the hog sector to better understand the frequency of diseases, emerging strains, and the movement of endemic diseases in Canada.
Source : Government of Canada