The Pork Checkoff has introduced a new emergency action plan tool that will help pork producers prepare for various types of emergencies including floods. Officially introduced at the 2009 World Pork Expo, the emergency action plan tool guides producers through the planning and documenting of an emergency response plan. The tool is Web-based and can be found at http://eap.pork.org.
Users are instructed to log in, describe their operations and consider various situations that can put a farm's employees, animals or facilities at risk. Additionally, users are required to think about and describe their resources including people, equipment and locations that can be of use when disaster strikes.
Assistant Vice President for the Pork Checkoff Liz Wagstrom notes things can happen very fast in an emergency and having a plan at the ready ensures that important decisions are not overlooked and that all resources are mobilized to achieve an effective solution.
A farm's emergency action plan is one of the documents that are reviewed as part of a PQA Plus on-farm assessment.