High health remains Canadian pork sector's main advantage

An independent swine industry consultant suggests the high health of Canada's swine herd remains one of its pork industry's biggest advantages when it comes to world trade.

With continuing declines in domestic pork consumption, expansion of the Canadian pork industry over the past 20 years has been in support of export growth, according to Ted Bilyea, with Ted Bilyea and Associates.

Bilyea said, ''Other countries where they have stressed the production much greater because their densities are much higher, they have had many more problems with disease.''

He noted that up until the AH1N1 flu outbreak, the country has largely benefited from these disease issues starting way back with foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Taiwan which really triggered that growth spurt.

He added the need to focus more on surveillance and making sure of good biosecurity. Bilyea also noted that while domestic consumption has been declining, the export market has stood up rather well and even this year, Canada has had robust sales up till the most current year.