The US meat processing giant, Tyson Foods, has expressed fears around the real threat of African swine fever coming to the United States.
In a report in The Financial Times, Noel White, Tyson’s chief executive, said: “This is an unusual, perhaps unprecedented time for the protein industry.
“In my 39 years in the business I’ve never seen an event that has the potential to change global protein production and consumption patterns as African swine fever does.”
Deaths resulting from both the cull and the disease in China, where it was discovered last year have cut that country’s pig numbers by more than 100 million animals. That, according to the FT, represents more than the entire pig inventory in the United States.
As outlined in the April issue of Meat Management magazine countries in major pig producing countries, which have not got ASF are putting in more stringent controls to prevent the disease entering. Rigorous steps are being taken in European pigmeat exporting countries. France is culling its wild boar population in the zone bordering Belgium, while Denmark is building a border fence.
The origins of the latest outbreak date back to 2006, when there was an outbreak in Georgia. It then spread to Russia, before appearing in the EU for the first time in Poland in 2014. It spread to six other Eu countries in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States; then, causing added concern, it was diagnosed in the wild boar population of Belgium last September.
As Meat Management columnist, Bob Bansback, observed: "It is essential to ensure that everything is done to keep ASF out of the UK."
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
