Dr. Liz Wagstrom, the chief veterinarian with the National Pork Producers Council in the United States, said in the event of an African Swine Fever outbreak (heaven forbid) in the United States, maintaining pig movements in unaffected areas will be a top priority.
Producers and industry representatives discussed the U.S. initiatives to prevent and respond to ASF at the recent World Pork Expo in Des Moines.
Dr. Wagstrom said the American pork industry relies on trade like Canada, and an ASF outbreak would likely cut off that trade immediately.
“It pleased us that the USDA set up a protection zone in Puerto Rico so that, if Puerto Rico were to break with African Swine Fever our trading partners would realize that’s not part of our mainland trade.”
The second thing to happen would be a 72-hour stop movement. With the U.S. moving almost a million pigs daily, stopping for three days is doable.
“But we want to make sure we have that consistency between states that movements can continue safely once we’ve identified where the disease is and look at how to make sure we can move in the non-diseased areas.”
A North American Swine Health Working Group meets under the direction of the Chief Veterinary Officers from Canada, the United States and Mexico. One of the main priorities of that working group is how to look at the North American industry and remain confident in trade between the sectors?
“We understand that Canada has accepted that the protection zone in Puerto Rico is appropriate. However, getting pigs from Canada happens every day and sending pork from the U.S. back into Canada happens every day and we need to do whatever we can to keep that moving freely.”
Dr. Wagstrom said the NPPC’s new ASF strategic plan for the future has six priorities.
Harmonizing the state and federal plans because many producers work across state lines. As mentioned earlier the industry needs consistency to harmonize and know what to do in each state to continue to grow and move pigs. The next one is to ensure producers have clear information and an understanding of their expectations. What do they need to do to be able to prepare and respond?
“The third one is to work with USDA to maximize surveillance efforts to have the best chance of identifying the first case of African Swine Fever as early as possible.”
The fourth one is the pilot project of the U.S. Swine Health Improvement Project modelled after the National Poultry Improvement Program. To ensure that it becomes an official USDA program included with USDA funding.
The fifth priority assures those producers will receive fair indemnity and look at market support programs if an outbreak happens. And the final one is to be prepared to get back into the trade as quickly as possible.
If the industry looks at adding an extra 27 to 30 per cent more pork to the domestic market because it can’t go for export the downward pressure would be immense. Discuss ahead of time with trading partners that USDA continues to work with the pork industry to identify the most important trading partners to involve in the ASF discussions.
“To identify the obstacles to them accepting a regionalization scheme in the United States to say we are confident that your free areas are truly free, and we would accept products from those areas.”
Dr. Wagstrom said preventing African Swine Fever is the number one priority and having a preparedness and response plan ready at a moment’s notice is essential in case of an outbreak. •
— By Harry Siemens
