Page 45 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 19

Food Health

protect the bigger players. In areas island the dreaded diseases afflicting introduced after the initial ASF
where there are outbreaks, only today’s globalised, industrial pig sec- outbreaks in 2018 have led to an ad-
backyard pigs are being culled, not tor-- such as Classical Swine Fever ditional import of up to 30 million
the pigs on the industrial farms.[10] and porcine epidemic diarrhoea. tons of maize and 10 million tons
Farmers are being compensated for of soybean meal for feedstock.
culled pigs, but not for those that As with many other countries where
died from ASF. If “Plan A” fails to ASF is now present, industrial pig ASF is boosting the pork trade
stop ASF from entering the indus- farms in the Dominican Republic too, which is another vector in the
trial pig farms, then the government are highly dependent on imports spread of the disease. On the one
will proceed with “Plan B”, which of feed ingredients. According to hand, the mass culls used to control
involves the complete eradication of an owner of one of the country’s the disease destroy much of the
all pigs in the country and perhaps largest pig farming operations, about local supply and increase the price
the entire island, including Haiti 50,000 trucks are needed every year of pork, paving the way for corpo-
where the disease has already been to drive imported feed and other rations to fill the void with imports.
detected in a border town. products from the ports to pig [20] China is the obvious example--
farms. It is now well established that it quadrupled its pork imports after
Plan A is already faltering. ASF has ASF can persist in feed ingredients ASF struck, taking in nearly half of
now spread to all the country’s pig through processing and long-dis- the world’s total pig meat exports--
farming provinces, and several out- tance transportation, and this is and the profits of big meat com-
breaks have taken place on industrial why some countries, like Canada, panies like WH Group (Smithfield)
farms, including breeder farms. Ac- have started implementing border soared. Now the Chinese govern-
cording to Francisco Israel Brito, the controls on feed ingredient imports ment is supporting its corporations
president of the Dominican Feder- from ASF-affected countries.Given to go overseas to build pig farms
ation of Pig Producers, 98 per cent that the Dominican Republic does that can supply China, such as the
of the country’s pig population is not have such controls, feed could controversial US$27 billion deal
“epidemiologically compromised”. easily have been the vector for ASF’s it began negotiating with Argenti-
entry into the island. na in 2020. The deal aims for the
Dr. Echevarria says that small pig construction of 25 mega pig farms
farmers in the Dominican Republic Despite these concerns with com- and would increase Argentina’s pig
have another theory. They think that mercial feeds, the OIE has not made population from 6 million to 100
Plan A is not about eradicating the them a central part of its global million pigs.
disease but eliminating small farmers effort to combat ASF. Indeed, most
so that the big meat companies and countries around the world have not On the other hand, because govern-
pig farmers can assert a monopoly implemented controls on imports ments are pursuing measures against
over the market. of commercial feeds or feed ingre- ASF that prioritise corporate pig
dients to deal with ASF, and few farms and export supply chains at
Profiting from disease even recognise commercial feeds as the expense of small scale pig farms
a possible source of transmission. and meat processors, ASF outbreaks
Today’s industrial pig farming indus- Governments have instead been in Asia and Europe are drastically
try in the Dominican Republic was cracking down on small farms for reshaping the pig farming sector.
born from the ASF outbreak of the using household wastes, known as These range from mass culls of
late 1970s, when the entire national swill feed, under the recommen- backyard pigs to rules prohibiting
herd was eradicated. It was after- dation from the United Nation’s swill feed and free-ranging pigs to
wards that politicians and business- Food and Agriculture Organisation the creation of zones or compart-
men began investing in industrial (FAO). This, plus the increase in ments that are exclusive to large
pig farms, and high-yielding breeds factory farmed pigs, which consume industrial operations so that they
of pigs replaced traditional varieties. high levels of commercial feed, is can continue to export meat even if
Over the decades, these industri- generating more demand for com- ASF is present in other parts of the
al pig farms, connected to global mercial feeds and, thus, increasing country (Box: What are ASF-free
suppliers of genetics, equipment, the trade in feed ingredients and compartments and zones?).
feed, medicines and consultants, creating more risks for transmis-
have come to dominate national sion across borders. In China, for Russian authorities, for example,
production, and have brought to the instance, prohibitions on swill feed responded to the emergence of ASF

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