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By Alice McFarlane

Agriculture Roundup

Agriculture Roundup for Thursday December 24, 2020

Dec 24, 2020 | 10:05 AM

Melfort, Sask.

The Saskatchewan Pork Development Board said meat processing plant workers should be among the first to be given the vaccine to prevent COVID-19.

Sask Pork general manager Mark Ferguson said processing was disrupted when workers became infected with COVID-19 and it had a negative impacted on North American live hog prices.

“We would like to see our processing facilities given a priority on vaccines. We know that a disruption had a huge impact on the entire economy so we would like to see vaccines provided to processing workers as soon as possible,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson said western Canada’s processors acted immediately to remain open.

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“Processors, early on, established some very successful protocols to keep disease from entering and spreading in their facilities and so the disruptions that occurred in the U.S. really didn’t repeat itself in western Canada yet,” Ferguson said.

Even with a few isolated outbreaks in Canada it was not serious enough to cause full plant shutdowns, according to Ferguson.

“Split shifts and staggered break times, masking, barriers between workers and social distancing at all times were some of the measures taken in the plants,” he said. “The same prevention strategies were implemented on farms to prevent the spread within barns.”

Ferguson said the end of the pandemic is still months away. He wants the pork sector viewed as an essential business so it can continue operating throughout the pandemic.

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Cleanfarms is predicting 2020 will be a successful year for collecting agricultural waste for recycling and disposal.

Cleanfarms has been operating pilot programs in Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta collecting ag plastic waste for products like used twine, grain bags and silage wrap.

Results will be calculated in the new year, but it appears that farmers were eager to return more empty containers than ever before with a 65 per cent return rate.

Saskatchewan farmers recycled just over 2,700 tonnes of grain bags which is a 20 per cent increase over last year.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF