Standard Operating Procedures translated into Spanish
Spanish SOPs for training and employee use.
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are essential for all livestock operations, including swine farms, for employee training and quality assurance programs. These documents allow consistent training for new and continuing employees throughout the operation. With more employees being non-English speaking, training needs to be versatile and completed in other languages.
Training manuals need to be consistent to create a positive and efficient work atmosphere. These procedures are also needed for various food safety and animal well-being programs such as Pork Quality Assurance, which allows farms to implement systems that meet industry standards while providing proper and reliable training to all employees. Michigan State University Extension’s pork team has created general SOPs (MSU Extension SOPs) for swine operations to implement on their farms.
These SOPs are currently available and the MSU Extension pork team has released Spanish versions of these SOPs to assist farms with providing training and education materials for the multicultural workforce in the swine industry. Over 50% of farm animal care workers and their supervisors throughout the U.S. are Latinex or Hispanic (2018 USDA Economic Research Service). Training tools, such as SOPs, need to be accessible to all barn personnel, including Hispanic-speaking employees. The MSU Extension pork team has translated the SOPs into Spanish to accommodate more employees on the farm.