Practical application can be developed now that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has released its National Standards and National Framework for the Canadian ASF Compartment Program.

From here, the Canadian Pork Council can develop the Compartment Operator Program, which is designed to segment different hog production and flows within regions that have an ASF outbreak. If specific hog populations can be put into boxes and kept separate, the CFIA and industry hope to see less severe market lockdowns.

“These compartments are established prior to an outbreak and are intended to allow for the export of products even if they were to originate from within an infected zone,” says the CFIA news release announcing the release of the Standards and Framework.

After CFIA called for responses to the idea of compartmentalization, farmers and industry expressed broad support for the idea of a pre-planned response to any ASF outbreak.

However, many were alarmed by the suspicion that government was attempting to dump ASF response responsibility onto farmers and industry. Others were concerned that compartmentalization within regions would undermine attempts to get regionalization accepted by trading partners.

After receiving the responses, CFIA said the worries about downloading responsibilities or undermining regionalization were a “misunderstanding” of the plan’s intentions and that “the compartment program is not part of nor does it replace the regulatory actions that the CFIA may use in response to ASF. Rather, it is an additional tool that industry may decide to implement, which could support business continuity during an outbreak.”

With the Standards and Framework released, the ball is now in the Canadian Pork Council’s court, with farmers soon likely to see the practical steps they will need to take if they want to end up in a compartment.

ASF has never been found in Canada and is not known to pose any human health or food safety risk. It causes fever, internal bleeding and high death rates in infected hog herds, with some strains killing almost 100 per cent of infected pigs. The virus has no vaccines or treatments.

The virus began to spread outside Africa into central Asia in 2007, leading to major outbreaks in China’s domestic hog herd starting in 2018, and has since also reached several European countries via wild pigs.

— Ed White reports for the Winnipeg bureau of the Western Producer.

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African swine fever is harmless to humans but is highly contagious and deadly in domestic pigs and wild boars. It has spread from Africa to Europe and Asia and has already killed hundreds of millions of pigs, affecting global meat markets.

Seven dead boars in were found in Fagersta, some 200 km northwest of Stockholm, and more tests are being conducted, the Veterinary Institute said in a statement.

“At present, we do not know how the infection got in, but it is a long jump from the nearest infected area in Europe, and we therefore assume that it has happened through humans and not wild boar,” it said.

While the virus does not affect humans or other animals, it can be spread via pork or by carrying it on shoes, tools or vehicles.

An outbreak of African swine fever has forced pig breeders in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia to cull thousands of pigs since June and is putting pressure on governments to compensate farmers for their losses.

— Reporting for Reuters by Johan Ahlander.

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The outbreak that killed 35,297 pigs in a herd of 285,034 on a farm located on Bulan island was detected on April 1 and confirmed on April 28, the Paris-based WOAH said, citing Indonesian authorities.

African swine fever (ASF) is not dangerous to humans but is fatal for pigs. It has plagued China for years, with an initial wave during 2018 and 2019 killing millions of pigs and leading to a dramatic decline in meat output that roiled global markets. China is facing a recent surge in infections this year.

The source of the Indonesian outbreak is still unknown but veterinary authorities told WOAH that humans, vehicles, feed, flies and wild boar may have played an important role in the introduction of ASF on the farm.

The investigation started after the disease was detected by the Singapore Food Agency in imported pigs, they also said.

Indonesia is already up against another major livestock disease outbreak, after foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) turned up there in April last year. The country had previously been considered FMD-free by WOAH since 1990.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris.

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The council on Tuesday announced it had elected Rene Roy, a hog producer from St-Jules in Quebec’s Beauce region, as its new board chair, and Scott Peters, a producer from Randolph, Man., just west of Steinbach, as first vice-chair.

Brent Moen of Alberta and Jack Dewit of B.C. remain in their roles on the council’s executive as second vice-chair and treasurer respectively.

As chair, Roy replaces another Steinbach-area producer, Rick Bergmann, who retires from the board as the longest-serving chair in the national council’s history.

“I would like to thank my friend Rick for representing our 7,000 Canadian pork producers for the past eight years as chair,” Roy said in a release following the council board’s meeting in Banff, Alta.

“Being chair of this organization is important and rewarding work, and Rick has tirelessly taken time away from his farm, business, and family to advance national files on behalf of all producers.”

“Rene Roy and Scott Peters will help lead the industry into the future, and I have faith in the board’s direction and in the organization’s ability to serve the best industry in Canada, the Canadian pork industry,” Bergmann said in the same release.

The council said its new executive team is already at work, continuing to develop plans for potential response and recovery in the event of any African swine fever outbreak reaching into Canada. The executive is also working to draft and put in place a new strategic plan for the organization this year.

As of last Dec. 5, the council also has a new executive director at the helm. Stephen Heckbert, formerly head of the public relations program at Ottawa-based Algonquin College, replaces John Ross, who left the council in November 2021.

Gary Stordy, the council’s director of government and corporate affairs, has held the exec post on an interim basis until now.

Heckbert, who is based at the council’s Ottawa office, has previously worked in communications and, in 2016, as director of comms for Steven Del Duca during the former Ontario Liberal MLA’s stint as minister of transportation.

Heckbert’s “extensive background in communications, leadership, and engagement are much needed as we tackle challenging policy files and move forward with our next stage of strategic planning,” Bergmann said in late November. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said Aug. 26 the government will provide up to $45.3 million toward a three-pronged effort to boost disease prevention and preparedness: pork sector programming, Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) capacity, and border controls.

Of that amount, $23.4 million is to go toward the Canadian pork industry’s “prevention and mitigation efforts” over a two-year period. That work would include:

• biosecurity assessments and improvements, including wild pig management;
• economic modelling, scenario analysis, and marketplace assessment;
• swine fever-related research;
• preparedness for “welfare slaughter” and deadstock disposal, including slaughter plant retrofits; and
• evaluation of “high-capacity technologies for humane depopulation of surplus hogs.”

For that part of the funding envelope, program details “are being developed and the program will be launched as soon as possible,” the government said in a release.

Separately, up to $19.8 million of the larger funding package is earmarked for CFIA’s “prevention and preparedness efforts” over a three-year period. Those include:

• boosting surveillance and lab capacity, including rapid diagnostic testing;
• exercises and development of response plans for different scenarios;
• raising “awareness, outreach and communications” to prevent swine fever spread;
• development of “compartments” — that is, a subpopulation of animals free from disease in one or more establishment that share a “common high standard of biosecurity;” and
• facilities, knowledge and expertise to support international partners developing a swine fever vaccine — and to help set up a framework for distribution. There is no known effective vaccine yet against ASF.

That portion will also support the CFIA’s work in setting up zoning arrangements with “additional” trading partners. Such zoning pacts — which in an outbreak are meant to help protect the flow of exports from regions of Canada where a disease has yet to appear — are already in place with the U.S., European Union, Singapore and Vietnam.

The remaining $2.1 million is set to support Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) border control activities, such as “measures that continue to prevent the entry of high-risk pork and pork products.”

Those include raising public awareness, improving “commercial targeting” and developing policy and procedure training for border services officers.

‘Human behaviours’

African swine fever — not to be confused with “classical” swine fever, also known as hog cholera — is a DNA arbovirus which, in its acute form, is known to cause mortality rates of close to 100 per cent in infected herds of domestic swine, usually within six to 13 days of infection.

The virus cannot transmit from hogs to humans and is not considered a food safety issue.

The virus can also remain viable for long periods of time in infected hogs’ blood, manure and tissues including uncooked or undercooked pork products or processed pork goods such as ham, sausages and bacon.

As the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) puts it, the ASF virus is also considered “highly resistant in the environment,” meaning it can survive on clothes, boots, farm equipment and tools and other materials.

That means “human behaviours can play an important role in spreading this pig disease across borders if adequate measures are not taken,” the OIE says.

Canada has never had a case of African swine fever, the government noted in its release, but the disease “continues to spread in several regions around the world” and even a “single case” in Canada would “immediately result in the closure of Canada’s borders to pork exports.”

Export sales, the government noted, today account for about 70 per cent of Canadian pork production, which Canadian Meat Council CEO Chris White said makes Canada the world’s third-largest pork exporting country.

ASF is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa and in recent years has spread to wild and/or domestic hogs in Asia — most dramatically in China, starting in 2018 — and parts of Europe. The Americas had not had an outbreak in about 40 years up until cases appeared last year in animals in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

“Prevention is key to avoid the entry of ASF, but preparedness will allow the pork industry to reduce the impact of the disease for a quicker recovery,” the CMC’s White said in the government’s release.

“We must continue to work as a team — federal, provincial and territorial governments together with industry — to prevent African swine fever from entering the country,” Bibeau said in the same release. “Strengthening the measures already in place is essential to protecting the hog sector and the vitality of rural communities.”

“Manitoba’s hog farmers are pleased that the federal government recognizes the threat that this disease poses not only to our sector, but our economy as well,” Manitoba Pork chair Rick Prejet said Aug. 26 in a separate release.

“We are committed to working in close collaboration across our sector, and with our partners at all levels of government to prevent African swine fever from reaching Canada, while also working to ensure that we have plans to mitigate potential impacts the best we can.”

“While ASF has not been found in Canada, its presence would be devastating to both the pork sector and the overall economy,” Alberta Pork chair Brent Moen said in a separate release Aug. 31, adding Bibeau’s announcement “shows a genuine commitment at all levels of government and within the pork sector” against ASF. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The outbreak on a farm in Emsland, Lower Saxony is the first in the northwest region where much of Germany’s pig sector is concentrated.

ASF, which is harmless to humans but often fatal to pigs, was first found in eastern Germany in September 2020, believed to have been spread from Poland by wild boars. This prompted China to ban imports of German pork, halting a trade that had brought in around one billion euros (C$1.34 billion) a year.

Some other major importers, including South Korea and Japan, followed suit, and rival EU producer Spain was among those able to pick up fresh business to Asia following the bans.

“This is very frightening news and if there were hopes that ASF had been confined to east Germany, and that the disease was under control, these have now been completely thrown out of the window,” said Justin Sherrard, global strategist animal protein at Rabobank.

Lower Saxony is Germany’s largest single pig production area with about 6.4 million pigs and piglets, Germany’s national statistics office says.

“With ASF cases continuing to occur in Germany no end to China’s import ban on German pork can be expected,” said Tim Koch, meat analyst at German market consultancy AMI. “Any hopes that China could lift the ban in the near future are over.”

Germany was for many years the European Union’s top pork producer but was overtaken by Spain last year after it lost access to China, the world’s largest importer of pigmeat.

Netherlands, France at risk

China’s own pig herd, the world’s largest, has also suffered heavy losses due to ASF but is beginning to recover.

“China anyway has a reduced import need for pork from Europe and it could be years before the Chinese market could be reopened to German pigmeat exports,” Koch said.

The growing number of wild boar in Germany, which can wander over long distances, means a spread of the disease had been expected despite government efforts to confine it to east Germany. Around 4,000 ASF cases in wild boar have occurred in Germany, mainly in the eastern states of Brandenburg and Saxony.

The outbreak also heightens concerns about the potential spread to neighbouring countries.

“If ASF can make a 500-km jump from east Germany to north Germany the concern is that it could move to the big pork industries in the Netherlands and France,” Sherrard said.

Without any immediate prospect of regaining access to major export markets such as China, Germany’s pig faming sector is expected to shrink further.

“Germany’s pork sector would love access to China and other markets lost since ASF entered the country,” Sherrard said. “But I think there is a realization in Germany that ASF will remain in the country for the long term and that Germany’s pork sector must adjust to a smaller customer base.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Michael Hogan in Hamburg.

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An isolated outbreak of the deadly hog disease was reported in northwest Italy at the start of the year, and the case found in Rome last week — the first detected in central Italy — has triggered fears of a spreading epidemic.

Andrea Napoletano, a close aide to the president of the Lazio region that surrounds Rome, told state broadcaster Rai the plan is to “selectively” reduce Rome’s wild boar population.

The region has banned picnics and ordered that rubbish bins be fenced off in large swathes of northern Rome, where the disease was found. Lazio’s boar population often enter the city, foraging for food in often-overflowing rubbish bins.

In a statement on Monday, the Lazio region said that out of 16 tests carried out on boars after the first case was detected last week, two were “very probably” positive to swine fever. Definitive results were not yet available.

Junior health minister Andrea Costa said the spread of wild boars was a problem all over Italy and a “large-scale cull” was required nationally, despite the concerns of animal rights groups and environmentalists.

African swine fever is harmless to humans but often fatal to pigs, leading to financial losses for farmers. It originated in Africa before spreading to Europe and Asia and has killed hundreds of millions of pigs worldwide.

China suspended pork imports from Italy in January after the illness was detected in a wild boar in the north-western Piedmont region.

The Italian government subsequently appointed a special commissioner to co-ordinate measures aimed at eliminating the disease.

— Reporting for Reuters by Angelo Amante.

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ASF forced China to cull millions of hogs and increase imports.

China continued to be Brazil’s top pork buyer in March, but acquired 41.8 per cent less than in the same month last year. The Chinese market was the destination of 34,100 tonnes, out of the total of 91,400 tonnes Brazil exported.

China’s pork imports from all sources fell by 64 per cent in the first three months of 2022, compared to the same period last year, to 420,000 tonnes, according to data released by the country’s General Administration of Customs.

“China would at some point restore production,” said Ricardo Santin, president of Brazilian pork and poultry lobby group ABPA. “The government helped and they resumed production earlier than the world thought it would.”

China produced 15.61 million tonnes of pork in the first three months of 2022, up 14 per cent from a year earlier. This marked the country’s biggest quarterly production in more than three years, according to Chinese government data.

Despite the drop in exports in March to China, the president of ABPA — a group that represents meatpackers such as JBS and BRF — said he saw a silver lining for Brazil’s prospects.

According to Santin, China’s first-quarter output data reflects higher production, but also a higher slaughtering of sows, a measure designed to save on high feed costs but that can affect the hog supply in future with fewer breeding animals.

IHS Markit analyst Aedson Pereira said China’s hog herd grew with massive government investment and use of some of the same production techniques as in Brazil.

“Chinese production has outgrown local demand,” he said. “Imports have fallen and along with them the global price of pork.”

— Nayara Figueiredo is a Reuters commodities reporter in Sao Paulo; writing by Ana Mano.

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The provincial ag ministry announced the moratorium Wednesday and said it’s “developing regulations for licensing existing commercial wild boar farms.”

Regulations for wild boar and feral pigs are also to be developed under the province’s Pest Control Act, the ministry said. Those rules would declare feral pigs to be a regulated pest in the province, and would “specify the various monitoring and control efforts as well as public obligations to report.”

Provincial funding for Saskatchewan Crop Insurance’s feral wild boar control program, which includes surveillance and eradication work, will also be doubled to $200,000, the ministry said.

Agriculture Minister David Marit, in a release Wednesday, described the moves as “substantial steps that improve risk management and protect the resilience and security of our agriculture industry, which is a critical component of our provincial economy.”

The move also follows Ontario’s decisions last fall not only to regulate wild boar as an invasive species, but to phase out the production of farmed wild boar in that province entirely.

Wild boar were introduced in Saskatchewan in the late 1970s as domestic livestock, and over time many of those animals have “escaped and reproduced at a rapid pace,” the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) said in a separate release last month.

SARM — which in its release called for the province to impose a moratorium on new farms — said it now knows of “over 60” southern Saskatchewan RMs “suffering from overpopulated boars.”

Feral pigs now are thus “established within localized regions of the province, including agricultural production areas, and represent a significant problem due to damage caused to hay and crop land and to natural areas, as well as their potential to spread invasive plant species,” the province said Wednesday.

The invasive hogs also “harass” livestock and wildlife, and are considered potential reservoirs for livestock diseases such as African swine fever (ASF), the province said..

A federally reportable disease that hasn’t yet made it to North America, ASF cut into China’s hog herd by as much as half after its arrival there in 2018.

More recently, the disease is believed to have spread to domestic hog herds in several European countries through that continent’s wild boar populations and has turned up in hogs in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

“To this day, wild boar have free rein of rural Saskatchewan land with no predators keeping the population in check,” SARM president Ray Orb said in that group’s release Feb. 17.

“Each year, the risk of transferable disease grows between domestic hogs. We can’t ignore the damaging financial and environmental impact wild boars leave in their wake any longer.”

Sask Pork board chair Toby Tschetter, in a separate release Wednesday, said the province’s planned new regulations “will help protect the provincial hog industry and help us to keep our food supply secure. We encourage farmers, ranchers and the public to use the wild boar reporting services as much as possible.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Tests confirmed the disease in a dead boar in Ovada, located about 120 km southwest of Milan in northern Italy, the statement said.

African swine fever is harmless to humans but often fatal to pigs, leading to financial losses for farmers. It originated in Africa before spreading to Europe and Asia and has killed hundreds of millions of pigs worldwide.

The discovery in Italy could be a blow to the country’s meat producers as governments often block imports of pork products from countries where the disease has been found as a way to prevent transmission.

China and other pork buyers banned imports of German pork in September 2020 after the first case was confirmed in wild animals in Germany.

The Piedmont regional government asked city mayors to stop hunting following the discovery. Wild boar can transmit the virus to other pigs.

The government also said it is raising its surveillance of wild boars and hog farms and increasing cleaning measures on farms as much as possible.

“As in the case of the (COVID-19) pandemic, the African swine fever emergency must also be addressed by appealing to everyone’s collaboration,” said Piedmont’s health deputy, Luigi Icardi, in the statement. “Piedmont health system is working alongside operators in the sector to prevent the circulation of the virus and protect swine farms.”

In China, the world’s biggest pork producer, African swine fever destroyed half the hog herd within a year of being detected there in 2018. Last year, Haiti and the Dominican Republic confirmed the first outbreaks in the Americas in nearly 40 years.

— Reporting for Reuters by Caroline Stauffer and Tom Polansek in Chicago and Joice Alves in London.

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