Behind the Lines - February 2016

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Based in the heart of western Ontario's pork-producing belt and with a long history in the hog transporting business, Doug Luckhart saw a need for a better way to move hogs to market coming. He was already working with trailer manufacturers in Europe and the United States when animal rightists stepped up their activities in 2015 and Toronto-based animal activist Anita Krajnc made herself famous last summer by being arrested for mischief for watering pigs outside the Sofina plant in Burlington. Truckers and farmers can't win this battle, Luckhart says. "We can do better." Senior Staff Editor Don Stoneman's story on humane trucking starts on page 6.

While Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea has garnered huge headlines in the last couple of years (that's what happens when an epidemic skews a commodity's prices), our resident contributing veterinarian Ernest Sanford points out that Porcine Reproductive Syndrome Virus and Porcine Parvovirus are still the most profit-robbing diseases hurting pork profits. Read what Sanford has to say about that starting on page 18.

Computer algorithms may already be a familiar term to farmers who use higher-tech methods in their fields to determine where fertilizer should be spread. But in the pig barn to monitor and analyze when coughing pigs are becoming sick? Our Europe writer Norman Dunn is always bringing us new technology from across the pond. His story starts on page 21. BP

ROBERT IRWIN