The dreaded African Swine Fever disease, which is not harmful to humans but has been fatal for hogs, now threatens the P6 billion hog industry of our province has been fortunate to avoid it as it has ruthlessly spread across the country over the past three years.
With the confirmation of 2 hogs having tested positive for ASF in Barangay Taculing in Bacolod City, and more than 7,000 hogs already killed by what is thought to be hog cholera disease over the past few weeks, Negrense hog raisers are swiftly coming to terms with the potential of diseases in wreaking havoc on the industry.
The total value of hog cholera deaths so far is already estimated at almost P90 million, and if ASF comes in to play, where devastating culling is part of the necessary infection control measures, that damaging figure could rise even more dramatically.
As the rest of the country has been dealing with ASF for years, organizations having been calling for government to set up border inspection facilities where imported pork can be tested for ASF at the point of entry, because without such facilities, biosecurity testing is left to the hog raisers.
Additionally, according to the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG), the lack of government indemnification for culled hogs gives swine raisers no incentive to report infections in their farms or backyards. Swine raisers have naturally preferred to sell their diseased hogs without reporting potential ASF outbreaks.
SINAG has pointed out that the Philippines is the only country without first-border inspection facilities for agricultural imports. No wonder it has taken the government more than 3 years, and yet ASF is still out of control. Even provinces that have miraculously managed to keep their ASF defenses up, like Negros Occidental, could hardly withstand the sustained barrage of threats as infections spread to surrounding provinces.
“It will not matter if you impose movement protocols and biosecurity measures on farms and the transport of live hogs if we continue to have unlimited entry of untested imported pork at the port of first entry,” SINAG executive director Jayson Cainglet recently lamented.
Filipino hog raisers have been warning that ASF and government’s inadequate responses to it are killing the industry. When Negros Occidental was not yet affected by ASF, we could afford to distance ourselves from the problem. But now that the virus has been detected within our borders and thousands of hogs have already died to diseases which expose the industry’s vulnerability to a virus as infectious and deadly as ASF, joining that call for national government to do a better job in containing the outbreak will become a necessity.*
