Hog farmers don’t like CFIA trucking change

Hog farmers, especially in Manitoba, are angry that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has changed its regulations for truckers returning from the United States.

They used to return to Canada to clean, wash and disinfect their rigs to keep Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus from infecting Canadian herds.

Now the CFIA wants the trucks to be washed in the United States and that’s where PED virus has been found in the wash water.

Instead of eliminating the virus, the U.S. truck washes are virus reservoirs that infect Canadian rigs, the Manitoba pork marketing board leaders warn.

Ontario pointed to similar concerns last winter and since then more Ontario truck-washing capacity has been added.

PED is devastating for newborn piglets and Manitoba has a particular concern because there is a heavy flow of weaner pigs to U.S. farms.

Those trucks come back to Manitoba farms populated with young pigs.

Ontario truckers are more likely to be hauling market-weight hogs to the U.S. and they can usually survive the virus.

But Ontario is working hard to eliminate the virus from farms where outbreaks have occurred and has implemented heightened biosecurity to keep herds free of the disease.