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Video: Traceability and biosecurity

Find out which traditional and modern tools were used to successfully trace animals during the bovine tuberculosis investigation.

Traceability and biosecurity – Transcript

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency corporate introduction plays. It shows images that represent the work of the Agency, including a petri dish, strawberries, a growing plant, a chicken and a maple leaf.

Text: CFIA - Safeguarding with Science

Text: Traceability and Biosecurity

On screen speaker: Former Chief Veterinary Officer for Canada 2014-2017, Dr. Harpreet Kochhar.

A bovine TB investigation requires an effective traceability system to identify and test potentially infected animals in order to control the spread of the disease and support eradication efforts while striving to minimize the impact on producers and the industry. Because an investigation covers the five year history of an infected herd, having a traceability system that can confirm the identity and movement of animals over that extended period is critical.

The CFIA has been successful in tracing animals during this investigation but it did require using all of the tools available to the Agency.

On screen speaker: CFIA Incident Commander of the Emergency Operations Centre in Alberta, Rick James-Davies.

Our current traceability system in Canada helps us in this event. The CCIA tags are there and we use them to the extent possible. I think there continues to be some room for improvement. Some of our traces, we rely heavily on the more traditional sources of information like brands and transport manifests and auction wire records. So I think we'll find a number of the players in the associations interested in talking about how we approve that traceability system in the beef sector in Canada.

On screen speaker: Former Chief Veterinary Officer for Canada 2014-2017, Dr. Harpreet Kochhar.

So while our tracing was effective. It was not always efficient and would not have been possible without significant participation from industry. We will continue to work with the cattle industry on best approaches to strengthen animal identification and traceability in Canada.

On screen speaker: CFIA Incident Commander of the Emergency Operations Centre in Alberta, Rick James-Davies.

You know certainly biosecurity is something we talk about in some of the other sectors such as poultry and pork. I think more and more we're hearing some of those same discussions in the beef sector. I think when this event is done, they'll be some lessons learned and some common practices that are perhaps reviewed.

On screen speaker: Affected producer Brad Osadczuk is standing next to a window in a hallway.

We've talked in our in our grazing co-ops about increasing the biosecurity and just a lot of different aspects. I do think biosecurity and traceability kind of go hand in hand. It's got to be something that works. Everything has to have a… you know it has to work in real life. Paper and regulations, they're all great. It's seems pretty good when you're sitting at a desk but at the end of the day, when you're on the ground and on the ranch, it has to run smooth. So it's something I think is going to take some work and we'll get it, we'll figure it out and it'll be better in the future I hope.

On screen speaker: Former Chief Veterinary Officer for Canada 2014-2017, Dr. Harpreet Kochhar.

The cattle industry continues to work on managing the biosecurity challenges for its sector. In this investigation, the use of community pastures and the co-mingling presented some unique challenges for biosecurity and traceability. Community pastures are a long established part of cattle production in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I expect that the industry will be looking at additional biosecurity measures that can be implemented within the community pasture system while still taking advantage of the grazing benefits and providing stewardship of the prairie grasslands.

Canada wordmark. Copyright Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada (Canadian Food Inspection Agency), 2017.

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