Michelle McMullen
19 Dec 2024
Arno Schober, SIP’s Chair, discusses the exciting progress we’ve made—and what lies ahead in 2025.
As 2024 draws to a close, Swine Innovation Porc (SIP) looked back on a year of significant milestones and impactful strides toward innovation in the Canadian pork industry. In the final episode of this year’s Community Wire, Arno Schober, Chair of SIP, highlighted key achievements from the past 12 months and gave a preview of what’s to come in 2025.
Here’s a look at the major accomplishments that have shaped SIP’s success this year:
1. Launch of Swine Cluster 4: One of the year’s major milestones was the official launch of Swine Cluster 4, a $20 million, five-year research program. This initiative brings together the Government of Canada, pork producers, and industry to drive innovation and address key challenges facing the pork sector.
2. Enhanced Knowledge Transfer Tools: SIP also ramped up its focus on knowledge transfer and translation activities, including website enhancements, new resources, and investing in growing the reach of its social media platforms. These communications channels are key for keeping producers informed and sharing the latest research insights.
3. Advancing National Research Coordination: SIP also took a significant step forward in 2024 by expanding its national research coordination efforts, collaborating more closely with provincial pork organizations (PPOs). We have worked to align research priorities across Canada, ensuring a more targeted approach to addressing industry needs. This included consulting with key stakeholders, to narrow the national research priorities to just four key areas for advancement in the near-term. This streamlined approach will help ensure that research funding is directed toward the most pressing challenges, maximizing impact for pork producers and the broader industry.
In 2025, SIP will continue to build on its national collaboration efforts, utilizing new tools to better communicate research outcomes. These efforts aim to provide valuable insights to Canada’s pork sector, from producers to processors.
“I am most excited about the possibilities we are tapping into with our national collaboration efforts in swine research and how it will benefit producers, processors, researchers, and in fact, all of the swine value chain.” -Arno Schober Chair, Swine Innovation Porc