Contact: Tammy Vaassen, Wisconsin Pork Association, 608-723-7551 or Zen Miller, UW-Extension Outagamie County, 920-832-5124
UW-Extension and the Wisconsin Pork Association will be hosting a series of workshops this spring for extension agents, veterinarians and ag educators to become Pork Quality Assurance (PQA) Plus® Advisors. Advisors are individuals who can certify pork producers in PQA Plus, and to assist producers in achieving site status in the program. To become a PQA Plus advisor, you must first complete training in the program to obtain advisor status.
The meeting dates and times are:
- Tuesday, May 24, 2016, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. Location: Room 713 East Hall, UW- Richland, Richland Center, 1000 Highway 14 West, Richland Center, WI 53581. Trainer, Dr. Pete Lammers.
- Wednesday, May 25, 2016, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. Location: Room 12 UW-Extension Office, Jefferson County, 864 Collins Road, Jefferson, WI 53549. Trainer, Zen Miller.
- Tuesday, May 31, 2016, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. Location: Room 103 Ag Center, UW-Extension Office, Eau Claire County, 227 1st Street West, Altoona, WI 54720. Trainer, Lyssa Seefeldt.
- Thursday, June 2, 2016, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. Location: UW-Platteville Ag Tech Center, 29200 College Farm Road, Platteville, WI 53818. Trainer, Dr. Pete Lammers.
PQA Plus® is the pork industry’s on-farm quality assurance program encompassing food safety and animal well-being. It provides a framework for significant, relevant food safety standards and improved animal well-being. Maintaining its food safety tradition to ensure U.S. pork products continue to be recognized domestically and internationally as the highest quality and safest available, PQA Plus also provides information to ensure producers can measure, track and continuously improve animal well-being.
To qualify to become a PQA Plus Advisor you must:
- Be a veterinarian, Extension Specialist or Ag Educator
- An Ag Educator is defined as a person who is a full-time adult educator or spends at least 50 percent of the time in production training.
- Have a B.S. or equivalent in Animal Science or associated field, and
- Have two years of recent, documentable swine production experience. (A combination of education and swine production experience may be considered satisfactory by the PQA Plus Trainer reviewing applications.)
PQA Plus Advisors must attend a PQA Plus Advisor training session and successfully pass an examination. PQA Plus Advisor certification is good for three years. There is no charge for this training and lunch will be provided with support from the National Pork Board and Wisconsin Pork Association.
Please RSVP seven days before the date you plan to attend so that meals and materials can be arranged. Online registration is available at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PQAPlusTraining16. If you do not wish to register on line for this training, call 920-832-5124 or email zen.miller@ces.uwex.edu. More information on PQA Plus can be found at http://www.pork.org/pqa-plus-certification/.
