By Bruce Cochrane
Canadian pork producers who ship to the U.S. are being advised to be aware of new U.S. requirements for identifying pigs imported from Canada.
The Manager of PigTrace Canada is encouraging Canadian pork producers who ship to the U.S, to be aware of new U.S. requirements for identifying pigs imported from Canada.
Under new regulations, which took effect July 1 to accommodate traceability anyone who ships or receives pigs in Canada must report those movements to the PigTrace Canada database within seven days.
As part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2014 November 18 and 19 in Saskatoon producers will be updated on the progress and accomplishments to date of mandatory animal movement reporting.
Jeff Clark, the manager of PigTrace Canada an initiative of the Canadian Pork Council, says two key changes involve the identification of pigs shipped to the U.S.
Jeff Clark-Canadian Pork Council:
Starting November 1 the USDA has said that all exports entering the U.S. must have official PigTrace I.D. so on weanlings and feeder pigs, instead of ear tattooing with the old CFIA numbers they can ear tattoo with their herd mark.
For breeding pigs like gilts that are sent to the U.S. they'd have to have a PigTrace ear tag.
Anything sent for slaughter direct from farm though doesn't need any form of identification but if it goes through a Canadian assembly yard first then it must have either a PigTrace tag or a slap tattoo on the shoulder.
Then the other date that's really important that's coming up is January 1 and it's more a marketing demand from the U.S. sow buyers.
There's a number of U.S. plants that have wanted PigTrace ear tags for quite a few years actually and they've been working to move that along in the U.S. as well with the USDA tags so they've sent letters to a number of the Canadian marketers saying they want PigTrace ear tags on all cull sows they buy otherwise there will be deductions but with our tags if there's a big demand for tags it takes three to four weeks to receive them so I encourage people, if they're interested, to get their tag orders in.
Source: Farmscape