BarnBase Protocols for Technicians

Modified 2002-10-03 23:30 , Chris Duke.

(Reference to: Phone Call Protocol, Biosecurity Protocol) their revision date: 18/09/2002

The field technicians for the University of Guelph and the Ontario Pork "BarnBase" project have received thorough training. The ten technicians have been taught the theoretical and practical information to be well informed about conducting farm visits. We have developed a set of detailed and strict procedures and protocols covering database usage, staff conduct, phone calls, farm visits, and biosecurity.

Each technician has been assigned areas that they are responsible for. These areas correspond to the Ontario Pork districts.

Data Base Usage

The project leader (Dr. Chris Duke) will be responsible for the creation and maintenance of the BarnBase data base. It will be compiled from the farm visit data. Memorandums of Understanding have been signed by the University and the project members to respect the privacy of the data.

Technician Conduct

The technicians have a very detailed description of responsibilities. These people are exceptional and were the best out of over 300 applicants for the jobs. The technicians all have an agricultural background, most actually having been directly involved in the swine industry in some way. The six day training took place during the week of 9th of September in the Richards Building (Dept of Land Resource Science, U. of Guelph). The topics included:

• Introduction to the project (background, necessity, etc.)
• Industry background
• Presentation by Ontario Pork staff of the organisation, and background to the decision taken to create a spatial database of barns.
• Biosecurity session by veterinarian
• Farm visit protocols by Ontario Pork field staff
• Introduction to GPS and GIS
• Handheld Pocket PC+GPS training
• Practicing farm visit scenarios
• On-farm test visit (Arkell Research Station, U. of Guelph)

The highly competent technicians are committed to the swine industry and believe in the importance in protecting it from health disasters.

Phone Call Protocol

The ten technicians will be responsible for contacting the swine producers and making the initial phone contacts. Ontario Pork will have contacted all of their members with a letter and with notices in their routine mailings. The technicians are not to make "cold-calls". The importance of an initial phone call is

• to establish contact and determine if a producer has/had/will have pigs
• to will ensure that the producer is aware of the project and of the importance of the work
• to will find out what biosecurity protocols or what is required to access the property
• to inform the producer that the technicians must follow the project biosecurity protocols in addition to the farm's protocol, whichever is a higher level of security
• to establish a meeting time and place for the near-barn visit
• to get directions to the barn or agreed upon meeting place.

The technicians have guidelines to follow when doing the phone calls.

Biosecurity Protocol

Protection of the producers' herds is paramount and all feasible precautions will be taken to ensure that these farm visits are as safe as possible. The biosecurity protocol has been defined and is provided here in further detail.