Undergraduates, Graduates, Postdoctoral Fellows to Present at Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium

Five undergrad, graduate students and postdocs will be presenting highlights of their research as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2023.Pork producers attending Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2023 set for November 7th and 8th will have an opportunity to interact directly with some of the young scientists conducting research on their behalf in Saskatchewan.

Dr. Dan Columbus, a research scientist nutrition with the Prairie Swine Centre, says, as part of the Graduate Students Research Highlights portion of the program, five students will be competing in this year's event.

Quote-Dr. Dan Columbus-Prairie Swine Centre:

This is something that actually was always part of symposium as a means to highlight the research that has been happening at Prairie Swine Centre but there's a lot more research in pigs that happens outside of the center and so back in 2017 we decide to expand it to include any research that had been done at any institution within Saskatchewan.

It includes undergraduate, graduate or postdoc research that has been done at the University of Saskatchewan, VIDO, the Western College of Vet Med or Prairie Swine Center.This is research that is being done in Saskatchewan and, as a result, has been supported or funded at least in part by producers and industry within the province.

This is an opportunity for them to see where their money is going, this is the research that it's funding, this is the information that we're highlighting.
I think that's why it makes this a very good venue, not only because then they can see what's going on but then hopefully we can give the information they're looking for to improve their production and business and hopefully the sustainability of the industry as a whole.I think the other side of it too is that it highlights who the students are.

These are the people that are coming up through the system and will eventually be the coworkers and the business representatives and stuff like that that everybody within the industry is going to be working with in the future.

Dr. Columbus says the event is part of their training and gives the students a chance to highlight their research and, because it is a competition, there is an opportunity for them to win a prize.