Farmscape for October 3, 2005  (Episode 1929)

Beginning next month Brandon, Manitoba based Assiniboine Community College will start offering a new Canadian based Trucker Quality Assurance program.

Trucker Quality Assurance, or TQA, was introduced in the US in 2002 and most of the major American packers have made certification under the program mandatory for all truckers delivering to their plants.

The program was developed by the US based National Pork Board to teach truckers the methods that will minimize losses during the transport of pigs to the packing plants and it's already being offered by Sask Pork and by Big Sky Farms in Saskatchewan.

Assiniboine Community College Pork Production Instructor Deanne Miller says the program being offered in Manitoba will include additional information specific to Canada.

Clip-Deanne Miller-Assiniboine Community College 

In Canada we've kind of identified a few areas that we feel need improvement on or a little extra information so we are going to develop an addendum to the TQA and offer that to truckers as well.

Some of the material that's important to Canada is, first of all, trucking of isoweans or weanlings, small pigs.

We do a lot of that in this area.

We are going to focus a lot more on biosecurity.

We will look at cold weather transportation.

They don't worry too much about that in the US so we need to look at what to do when driving for extended times with sub-zero temperatures.

We'll also look at spending a little more time on animal handling and teaching truckers how to know what the pig is thinking and how the pig wants to move.

That should make his or her job a lot easier.

Miller says applications are being accepted now and the first offering of the course is slated for November 17th in Brandon.

She says, although the program is voluntary, most processors in the US and Mitchell's Gourmet Food in Saskatchewan require certification for drivers to be eligible to deliver to their plants.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council