CONTINUES GLOBAL MARCH African Swine Fever

While African swine fever (ASF) has never been found in the United States, global disease poses a constant threat to the U.S. pork industry – not least because it continues to spread across Europe and Asia even as it lingers much closer by in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, being spread by both feral swine and those working in and around commercial farms.

Currently, ASF is present in more than 50 countries around the world according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Although the European Union’s infection started slowly in 2014, the disease has now spread to pork powerhouses such as Germany and Poland and to neighboring non-EU countries. Meanwhile, China and many Asian countries continue to battle against the massive ASF losses inflicted there since 2018.

With ASF as close as the Caribbean to the U.S., producers here must think how they should prepare for a foreign animal disease. A good start is going to the new Ohio Pork Council FAD Dashboard at FADReady.org.