Farm-Scape is sponsored by Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork Play Audio Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.

Farm-Scape, Episode 1530

Alberta Quality Pork is advising producers of new requirements for the use of 100 percent detectable needles when medicating pigs destined for delivery to federally inspected packing plants in that province.

Effective June 30th producers who ship hogs to both Olymel and Maple Leaf Pork will be required to use 100 detectable needles on the farm.

Alberta Quality Pork Manager Sarah Turner says, while Maple Leaf is requiring the use of a 100 percent detectable needle, Olymel has indicated it would prefer a 100 percent detectable needle with a minimum breaking strength of 80 pounds.

"The reason packers tend to be going this route is that broken needles do cause quite a bit of concern at the packing or the processing level.

If a broken needle occurs and it isn't reported to them it's very difficult to find a needle that isn't detectable within the product.

Traditional needles don't have the types of alloys that can be picked up by a metal detector very readily.

These new needles are designed so that, when they are put through the scanning machines, they are detectable and they can find even a fragment of a needle within the piece of meat.

One of the CQA requirements is that producers are communicating broken needles to the processors so they have to report these things at the time that they ship the animal.

Broken needles don't occur very often in our industry but when they do we have to put a control mechanism in place.

One broken needle getting through to the end user is one needle too many. Just one needle can do a lot of damage to our reputation of providing a safe product".

Turner says there are currently two detectable needles available on the market, the Ideal D3 which does have a minimum breaking strength of 80 pounds and the PDN needle which has a lower breaking strength.

She says the cost of either of those needles is very close to that of a typical monoject needle or something along that line.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.