Animal Health Canada Receives Funding Through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership

Animal Health Canada has been awarded 13 million dollars to further its efforts to improve the health and welfare of farmed animals in Canada. Animal Health Canada has secured funding through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s AgriAssurance Program under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership to help continue its collaborative work to advance animal health and welfare in Canada.

The Funding announcement was made yesterday as part of Animal Health Canada Forum 2024.Animal Health Canada Executive Director Colleen McElwain says through collaboration and innovation, we are building a more resilient and responsive industry that can meet both current and future challenges.

Quote-Colleen McElwain-Animal Health Canada:

We've got a commitment of over 13 million dollars to help us with the work that happens within our divisions.This is over a five-year term ending March 31, 2028 and the work will go to important industries that will be coordinating in relation to emergency management for animal diseases with a focus on Foot and Mouth Disease, African Swine Fever and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.

It will also go to our National Farm Animal Care Council division and that division will be working on the codes of practice for the care and handling of farm animals.There's a number of codes that are planned to be updated and one to be revised.

We also have our third division, the Canadian Animal Health Surveillance System which helps to coordinate and share information through its network of network models for animal health disease surveillance information across the country and that helps to move information out of different provincial labs and so on and make sure that information is share more freely.

We'll have a national focus for the work that we do.The types of programing that will be supported, the first one will be expanding our African Swine Fever model and looking at how we can use that to support other diseases such as Foot and Mouth Disease and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.

We'll also be reviewing and making decisions on future planning for our CanSpotASF program, which is a surveillance program related to African Swine Fever.

McElwain says this funding strengthens the organization's ability to work with members and partners to enhance foreign animal disease planning and preparedness, promote sustainable approaches for animal welfare, and improve our disease surveillance capabilities.