Poultry industry joins together to form ARMMI

NEWS HIGHLIGHT

Poultry industry joins together to form ARMMI
Ontario’s poultry industry has improved its ability and
capacity to respond to emergency situations with the establishment of
Agriculture Response Materials Management Inc. (ARMMI).

June 14, 2010 – Ontario’s poultry industry has improved its ability and capacity to respond to emergency situations with the establishment of Agriculture Response Materials Management Inc. (ARMMI).  ARMMI will stockpile Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits to ensure that industry can quickly respond to farm related emergency situations such as disease outbreaks.

Minister Mitchell with members of the ARMMI Board at CFO Annual General Meeting in March.  (L-R Greg Morrison, TFO; Kevin Thompson, AOCP; Minister Carol Mitchell, Albert Visser, EFO; Gwen Zellen, CFO; Gord Coukell, OLPC; Tim Nelson, PIC. Advertisement

ARMMI was founded by Association of Ontario Chicken Processors (AOCP), Chicken Farmers of Ontario (CFO), Egg Farmers of Ontario (EFO), the Ontario Broiler and Hatching Egg Chick Commission (OBHECC) Ontario Livestock and Poultry Council (OLPC), Poultry Industry Council (PIC) and Turkey Farmers of Ontario (TFO) and these organizations each appoint one member to sit on the ARMMI Board of Directors. Initial funding to create ARMMI was provided by the four feather boards (EFO, CFO, TFO and OBHECC), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA).
 
This June, the Ontario poultry industry will hold an infectious disease simulation exercise between June 15-17 to give the industry the opportunity to practice and improve emergency response procedures.
 
“This exercise will assess how well the  industry can manage the response to a  poultry disease situation and how we communicate with each other, farmers, industry stakeholders, government and media during an emergency situation” explained Dr. Gwen Zellen, Chair of ARMMI. “Conducting a full scale simulation also tests our operational response and the distribution of ARMMI supplies.”
 
This simulation will give ARMMI the opportunity to test their ability to rapidly distribute PPE kits and other response equipment.
 
“By working together, Ontario’s poultry industry is better prepared to react to an outbreak,” said Carol Mitchell, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. “Our government is committed to making sure our food is safe and we’re proud to support this important initiative.”
 
“We won’t know the type of emergency or the location of the emergency until we receive the call sometime between June 15-17” explained Albert Visser, Director of Operations, Egg Farmers of Ontario. “We’ll be treating this exercise as a real emergency situation so we have a true understanding of what we do well, and where we can improve as individual organizations and as an industry.”
 
Funding for this project was provided in part by Agriculture and Agri-food Canada through the Agriculture Adaptation Council CanAdvance program. 

For more information, contact:
Dr. Gwen Zellen
Chair, ARMMI
Vice President, Food Safety, Operations and Environmental Affairs, Chicken Farmers of Ontario
Gwen.zellen@cfo.on.ca
289-288-4208