By Dori Modney

Ensuring animal health with new diagnostic pilot project

Sep 2, 2020 | 5:57 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB. — A new pilot project at the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, has set out to help livestock producers ensure the health of their animals. Funding is being provided by the Alberta and federal governments.

Karin Schmid, the Research and Production Manager for Alberta Beef Producers (ABP), feels the project is a solid step forward:

“We really welcome this announcement, because we used to have a really impressive network of services and laboratories here in Alberta, but when funding for these collapsed about 25 years ago, producers were left with limited options to manage animal health. This pilot project and the investment by the province and the Canadian agricultural partnership is a first step towards reinstating a basic level of diagnostic services and supporting some much needed disease surveillance efforts.“

According to Schmid, the ABP is extremely pleased the funding will provide some increased capacity and support of disease investigation services, led by the diagnostic service unit at the U-of-C Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

Schmid says the pilot project is something they’ve advocated for a long, long time, and it should be all-encompassing for livestock producers:

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“In addition to providing increased services from a laboratory standpoint at the U-of-C, they do say they will be looking at some disease investigation on-farm as well, which is something we haven`t had in any formal way in Alberta for a really long time – it`s something that served other provinces such as Saskatchewan very well, when looking at emerging diseases, or re-emerging diseases or just weird things that happen that we probably should be aware of but, have no way of tracking or knowing about it, at this stage of the game.“

Schmid sees the pilot project as a good step towards having a more comprehensive diagnostic and surveillance support system in the province.