JANUARY 2020 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
37
Commission offers new guide for hog production BC taking steps to educate small producers, new entrants
by DAVID SCHMIDT ABBOTSFORD – Although
there are only 15 hog producers registered with the BC Hog Marketing Commission, BC probably has the largest number of hog producers in Canada. A farmer must produce the equivalent of 300 market hogs a year to be registered as a commercial hog producer with the BCHMC. “About 1,200 producers are
registered with Pig Trace in BC and we think the total number of BC hog producers could be somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000,” says BC Ministry of Agriculture dairy and swine specialist Tom Droppo. “Most produce between one and eight hogs a year although anecdotal evidence suggests quite a few market between 10 and 60 hogs a year.” Because of that, the ministry is collaborating with the BC Pork Producers
Association on an education initiative targeting small-lot producers. A subcontractor has been hired to draft information on legislation, cost of production, codes of practice, pig health and nutrition as well as environmental regulations into a multi-chapter resource binder. “The binder is based on similar binders the ministry has created for small-lot
poultry, sheep and goat producers,” Droppo says. “We’re taking materials developed for commercial producers and distilling it down for untrained producers.”
Once the binder has been completed, it will be available in both hard copy
and for download from the BC Pork website. BCPPA general manager Christine Koch stresses the BCPPA will only act as a host for the material as it does not have the resources to provide support to unregistered producers. The ministry will hold six
FILE PHOTO
one-day workshops on Vancouver Island and in the Lower Mainland, Okanagan, Kootenays and northern BC in February and March to present the binder to existing and aspiring small-lot producers. Workshops will be free and include lunch and take-home copies of the resource binder. “Our plan is to update the chapters online as new information becomes available so the material on the BC Pork website is the most current. Producers who attended a workshop will be
able to see what chapters were updated and replace them in their binders,” says Droppo. The Canadian Pork Council is closely watching BC’s initiative to see its
impact and uptake. “The commercial pork sector in Canada regards the small-lot swine sector as one of its highest biosecurity risks to disease introduction,” he says. “With BC's high traffic in trade and people, and given the risk of African swine fever making its way to Canadian shores, we had to attempt to develop a comprehensive package of practical information targeted to small-lot swine producers and make it easily accessible.”
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