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By Alice McFarlane

Training for swine barn workers

Training program for swine barn workers

Oct 21, 2025 | 4:07 PM

An online training platform for swine barn workers will be discussed at the upcoming Saskatchewan Pork Symposium.

The PigLEARN is an online program to help farms manage, coordinate, and track their training programs.

Mark Fynn is the Training Resources Coordinator with the Canadian Pork Council (CPC). He said the CPC has developed 86 different training modules with another ten to be delivered soon.

“The platform hosts that material and allows people to get a user account, log in, participate in that training, learn some best management practices as advised by a number of producers and other swine sector experts,” he said. “It also allows companies, if they want to, to administer their own groups of users and even upload their own training content to the platform.”

Fynn said the platform is for any individual who wants to look at the CPC training modules, or a company is actively participating and following the training platform.

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“When we look at the CPC training modules that are up there, we call it the PigLEARN catalogue. We cover topics from biosecurity to preparing pigs for transport to how to manage a sow barn, group sow housing, pig handling,” Flynn added. “There’s a number of different topics that are covered and it’s really equipping our new workers with a strong foundation as they go into the barn.”

Fynn said the platform allows companies to administer their own training programs, schedule learning, track the progress of learning, and demonstrate that training has been provided.

He encouraged anyone interested in the PigLEARN training platform to contact their provincial pork organization.

Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2025 is being held Nov. 4 and 5 in Saskatoon, Sask.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com