The Canadian Swine Health Board has introduced a new biosecurity standard for Canadian pork producers.

What the new standard means for your farm was discussed yesterday as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2010.

Swine Health Board chair Florian Possberg says standard outlines protocols for reducing the risk of disease entering units, moving around units and leaving units.

Florian Possberg-Canadian Swine Health Board

It identifies the areas that are critical for a good biosecurity program and then we follow up with best management practices.

It also lays out some basic issues like keeping facilities secure by locking doors and also having limited access perimeter zones around our units.

All of these things are kind of common sense but what we have tried to do is really emphasize the importance of doing things like that and the practical way that we can use these standards to improve our biosecurity on farm, ultimately really trying to reduce the risk of disease transmission.

The challenge though is that health can be regional, it can be national.

For example foot and mouth disease, we could have a break in biosecurity and affect an animal at one coast or the other or in the middle of Canada for example and that's going to affect every livestock producer in Canada.

Biosecurity needs to be more than what I do on my farm.

It needs to be what we do as a community to protect ourselves, our region and our country.

Mr Possberg says if we can prove we are free of certain diseases we can access international markets that are currently limited.