Farmscape for May 14, 2008 (Episode 2846) The extended economic downturn in Canada's pork industry has prompted officials of the PSC Research Farm to temporarily suspend the operation of its Elstow, Saskatchewan research facility. The PSC Research Farm, a subsidiary of the Saskatoon based Prairie Swine Centre, is a 600 sow farrow to finish facility designed to support research in a commercial-style barn. Prairie Swine Centre and PSC Research Farm president and CEO Dr. John Patience says operations at Elstow will wind down beginning this week and the last pigs will be shipped in early September. Clip-Dr. John Patience-Prairie Swine Centre Most of the research will run its course and be completed before the animals are marketed but there will be some experiments that unfortunately will have to be stopped. Any research that might have been done at Elstow over the next period of time when it's closed, we will attempt to do at the Prairie Swine Centre which is a completely separate facility and separate organization but obviously our ability to do the quantity of research and the ability to do research of the type that we were doing at Elstow will be removed for a period of time and that's particularly unfortunate because when we look at the history of the research undertaken at PSC Elstow Research Farm since 2000 when it was opened, it's been very popular with the industry, like group housing of sows, large group housing in grow finish, the effect of Paylean on the eating quality of pork, autosort technology, those kinds of things which are pretty close to the commercial reality of our industry. But because we wanted to create a commercial like environment it also is exposed to the vagaries of the market place and unfortunately this down tune in the economy was too long for the company to sustain. Dr. Patience says, while there are indications that the economics of pork production could turn around by the summer of 2009, it's premature to estimate how long operations at Elstow will remain closed. He notes, the irony is that there is still lots of interest in research, most critically research that focuses on reducing costs and improving income. For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane. *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council |