Automated Swine Transport Trailer Disinfection Moving Closer to Commercialization
A Swine Innovation Porc project aimed at automating the cleaning and disinfection of swine transport trailers to improve biosecurity and reduce disease transmission has moved closer to commercialization
by Bruce Cochrane – FarmScape Online
Scientists with the University of Saskatchewan, the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, the Prairie Swine Centre, and the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute are working on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc to improve the efficiency of washing swine transport trailers and the inactivation of disease causing pathogens.
Dr. Terry Fonstad, a Professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, says phase-3 will hopefully move the project toward commercialization.
“They are already working on humidity and temperature sensing for animal welfare, and we’re going to add the ability to trace the trailer and GPS”
“PAMI’s work has brought in partners from the robotics industry with a company out of Ontario along with a hydrovac system company out of Wisconsin that are interested in combining their talents to actually commercialize the wash system.“VIDO’s work will go into the field where in the lab we know we can kill these pathogens with heat.
“But now we have to take pathogens that may have the same characteristics, but not be swine pathogens, and test them in actual bake ovens that bake trailers and make sure we’re actually getting the pathogen kill that we need.
“They may have to be proxy pathogens, but we are working through the process with them.
“The Prairie Swine Centre is working with the trailer manufacturers and we, at the College of Engineering, are working with a private company called Transport Genie and Be Seen Be Safe out of Guelph.
“They are already working on humidity and temperature sensing for animal welfare, and we’re going to add the ability to trace the trailer and GPS.
“We will be able to sense the heating of the actual trailer frame for pathogen destruction.
Dr. Fonstad says the hope is by the end of phase-3, all of these advancements can go into commercialization and that the academics can back off a bit and answer the few remaining questions so that industry can take the lead.
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