Ottawa - A pre-Christmas conference of senior livestock industry representatives made good progress on developing a plan for establishing Animal Health Canada (AHC) to monitor farm livestock health, says Rory McAlpine.A plan for setting it up as a stand-alone outfit is on a clear path for being fully ready to present to the federal-provincial agriculture ministers' meeting this summer in Guelph, said McAlpine, senior vice-president of government and industry relations at Maple Leaf Foods and one of the driving forces behind the creation of AHC.The conference here brought together senior industry and agriculture representatives for two-days of in-depth discussions on a governance model for the AHC. They will meet again in April to update the progress.“We still have a lot of work to do on it,” McAlpine said. “We have some tough decisions to make yet. There are also lots of operational challenges we have to deal with.”Part of the preparatory process will be to study animal health agencies in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the Netherlands to see what can applied from them to the AHC, which is intended to become an industry-government partnership.The plan is to have AHC in charge of animal disease emergency response and biosecurity with a focus on preventing the conditions that lead to disease outbreaks, McAlpine said. It would work as a public-private partnership under federal government regulatory authority.The industry-government committee coming together to manage an outbreak of African swine fever is providing good example of how AHC could function.It currently is housed in the National Farmed Animal Health and Welfare Council.Creating AHC is seen as the best way of working around Canada's fragmented and sluggish system for preventing, preparing, responding and recovering from livestock diseases, he said.The Synthesis Agri-Food Network is conducting an inventory assessment and gap analysis of Canada's prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning for an animal health event. The purpose of the gap analysis is to understand the current state of animal health in Canada and to identify gaps or areas for improvement that will ultimately help strengthen the system.Back in 2017, the federal government announced a Plant and Animal Health Strategy with plans for separate industry-led agencies to deal with emergency situations such as Canada had already experienced with BSE and Avian Influenza. One of the reasons cited for the move was “the lack of a cohesive national approach that can provide stronger government-industry collaboration. The current fragmented structure leads to inefficiencies, missed opportunities for synergies and slow decision making. The end result of the current structure is increased risk and overall cost for both government and industry.”Plant Health Canada is in the process of being developed by farm and industry groups and government.Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.