Pork Quality Assurance Plus (PQA Plus) is a management education program run by Pork Checkoff that emphasizes good management practices in the handling and use of animal health products, and encourages producers to review their approach to their herd’s health problems. PQA Plus is a workable, credible and affordable solution to assure food safety and animal care to help meet the needs of customers including restaurants, food retailers and consumers. A PQA Plus certification assure consumers they are purchasing the highest quality, safest product possible while caring for animal well-being. By completing this program, producers demonstrate their commitment to quality assured pork production.

PQA Plus is a three step program involving: individual certification through education, farm site assessment, and third-party verification to continuously analyze the success of the program.

Education
Education is delivered to producers by trained PQA Plus™ advisers who are veterinarians, extension specialists or agriculture educators. Producers who complete the education component receive PQA Plus™ certification valid for three years. The program has 10 Good Production Practices that address food safety and animal well-being through conceptual training. They are:

1. Establish and Implement an Efficient and Effective Herd Health Management Plan.
2. Use an Appropriate Veterinarian/Client/Patient Relationship (VCPR) as the Basis for Medication Decision-     making.
3. Use Antibiotics Responsibly.
4. Identify and Track All Treated Animals.
5. Maintain Medication and Treatment Records.
6. Properly Store, Label and Account for All Drug Products and Medicated Feeds.
7. Educate All Animal Caretakers on Proper Administration Techniques, Needle-Use Procedures, Observance    
    of  Withdrawal Times and Methods to Avoid Marketing Adulterated Products for Human Food.
8. Follow Appropriate On-Farm Feed and Commercial Feed Processor Procedures.
9. Develop, Implement and Document an Animal Caretaker Training Program.
10. Provide Proper Swine Care to Improve Swine Well-Being.

On-Farm Assessment
The on-farm site assessment is an educational and evaluation process developed to track the welfare of animals on-farm. The assessment can be completed by a PQA Plus™ adviser or by an individual producer who has been specially trained to conduct one. The assessment includes a review of records, facilities, equipment and animal care and well-being practices. Once a site has been assessed, it gains a PQA Plus™ Site Status that is valid for three years.

Third-Party Verification
A third-party verification survey will be completed on a random statistical sample of the assessed sites to evaluate the success of the program. The results from the survey will be pooled, analyzed and used to learn how the PQA Plus™ and other National Pork Checkoff Board-sponsored programs can be altered or improved to better serve producers.

The three-pronged approach was developed by the Pork Industry Animal Care Coalition, made up of pork producers, packers/processors, restaurants and food retailers to give confidence to consumers that U.S. Pork is produced in a way that respects animal well-being.

For more information on the program and how to be involved, please refer to the National Pork Board Web site.