News African swine fever
Russia: 'Europe spread ASF to China'
How did African swine fever get to China? The Russian food watchdog 'Rosselkhoznadzor' claims the disease has spread from Europe to China. In China itself, the pig market has meanwhile been severely disrupted.
The food watchdog has conducted an investigation and suspects that the virus ended up in China via 1 of the European Member States. Since the European Union (EU) exports large volumes of pork to China, this is most likely. The agency considers the chance that the virus has been transmitted from Russia is small.
The allegation deserves a caveat. African swine fever (ASF) has been rife in Russia for years, which makes the country itself suspicious. The Russian pig sector has been trying to gain access to the Chinese market for some time now. In the event of a possible accusation, that ambition can be put on hold.
Transport ban
Meanwhile, reports of African swine fever in China continue to pour in. The first outbreak was detected at the beginning of August and that increases to about 20 outbreaks in mid-September. The Chinese government has taken various measures to prevent further outbreaks. For example, transport bans have been announced in 10 areas, spread over 6 provinces. The impact of this is huge.
This also applies to the province of Lianing, which is located in the northeast. From there, 20% of the production is transported to the south every year. The supply is now cut off. In the 10 areas where the ban applies, 217 million pigs are slaughtered every year, according to Chinese statistics. This corresponds to a third of the annual production.
Wedge on pig market
The measures are creating a wedge in the Chinese pig market. In the areas with a transport ban, pigs are slaughtered en masse to prevent a possible outbreak; falling prices are the result. In the south of the country, where the disease has not (yet) been observed, prices are rising sharply.
The average pig price in China last week was 14,51 Chinese yuan per kilo (live). The difference between the prices in the north and south of China has now risen to 6 yuan. Despite the measures taken by the government, backyard farmers in particular are not yet fully aware of the seriousness of the situation. They sometimes even regard the outbreaks as 'fake news'.
(1 Chinese Yuan = €0,12)
Wouter Job
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