Behind the Lines - April 2014

Thursday, April 3, 2014

There's no need to list the challenges that the province's struggling pork industry has faced over the last eight or nine years, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus being the latest. Sometimes it's hard to realize and remember that in spite of these challenges, there are producers who are moving ahead, looking for new knowledge and technology in other jurisdictions and applying it to their own farms.

In this issue's cover story, we've featured one of these farms, Verkuyl Farms Limited, detailing the approach taken by the third generation of a farm family who are adopting techniques such as employing a night shift to help with birthings, cross-suckling to get the most benefit from highly prolific genetics and new technologies, and even working with offshore workers who speak another language. That story, by senior staff editor Don Stoneman, starts on page 6.

This issue also looks at the other steps ahead being made for the pork industry – treatments to improve the immune systems of pigs infected with porcine reproductive and respiratory virus and developments in genomics that will help scientists analyze biological functions to advance meat quality and disease resistance. Those columns, by Janice Murphy and Ernest Sanford, start on pages 13 and 25 respectively.

Coincidentally, Norman Dunn, in his regular column on research in Europe, looks at the benefits to sows and piglets of cross-suckling their babies. It complements the article on the Verkuyl farm here at home.

Dunn also reports on an interesting approach to key performance indicators. Have you ever considered monitoring the number of pigs weaned per farrowing place? Could this be a better indication of profitability than other things which we monitor, like pigs per sow per year or pounds of pork per sow? See page 27. BP

ROBERT IRWIN