Pork Industry Research Gets Funding
« EU Study Neutral on Biofuels | Home | Tips for Healthy Lentils »
New research initiatives at the University of Manitoba – aimed at helping Canada’s swine industry – are getting a much-needed boost in the form of funding from the federal government.
Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has announced that more than 15 million dollars will be directed to the University’s National Centre for Livestock and the Environment – funding that will help to support initiatives like research, traceability and product development, that will help Canada’s pork industry stay competitive in these difficult times for hog farmers.
As part of the funding, 9.5 million dollars will go towards the creation of a “swine research cluster.” The cluster will include representatives from the pork industry and the government, as well as scientists, to help identify the priorities for swine research and development.
According to the University’s Acting Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Dr. Karin Wittenberg, the National Centre for Livestock and the Environment has an important role to play in the hog industry’s sustainability, in terms of the contributions it makes to research and training. The funding will help the Centre to develop solutions to problems in a number of key areas.
“We often think firstly and foremostly about improved economics around production,” says Wittenberg, “but more importantly we’re trying to address some of the needs of our public and the consumer.
”The cluster funding that we’re talking about today really addresses many of the things that we have an interest in, issues like good feed formulation and feed delivery so that we have efficient production but also so that we produce animals in a way that minimizes any adverse impacts on the environment and that we produce animals that have a meat quality that meets the demands of our consumers whether we’re talking about consumers locally in Canada or whether we’re talking about the many consumers in the countries to which we export.”
Wittenberg expressed her pleasure at the government’s decision to direct the funding toward the Centre and said that researchers are looking forward to participating in the initiatives that the funding will support.
Canada’s pork industry has been under stress from factors including the Swine Flu outbreak, trade issues, and decreasing consumption of pork worldwide.
