Canada and the United States agreed on a plan in case of ASF

How will the North American pig industry function if African swine fever infects feral pigs?

While the deadly swine disease has not yet arrived in North America, the African swine fever virus has devastated herds in CHINA and continues to spread in Eastern Europe, partly through feral pigs. If ASF arrives in the US or CANADA, it will immediately shut down trade and cost billions of dollars to the pig industry in the two countries.

Canada and the US have already agreed on a protocol to regulate bilateral trade if ASF is detected in feral but not domestic pigs.

If this happens, all trade in live pigs, porcine germplasm and unprocessed pork products will be initially stopped. Trade in products processed to reduce the effectiveness of the ASF virus may continue.

The latter is critical because the virus persists in pig body tissues for several months after slaughter without proper handling.

ASF does not infect humans and does not pose a threat to food safety, but when pigs are fed raw food waste contaminated with the virus, it infects the animals.

Also, when a case of ASF is identified, geographic boundaries are defined to contain the outbreak. In other words, control zones established by the guidelines of the World Organization for Animal HEALTH are being established. Areas outside the control zones are disease free zones.

The new international protocol includes several steps that will gradually reduce trade restrictions in the case of ASF.

Coordination is essential as thousands of domestic pigs cross the Canada-US international border every week.

For example, pig farming creates more than 100,000 jobs in Canada and brings in about $24 billion a year. In 2020, the industry exported 1.4 million tons of pork worth over $5 billion to 93 different markets.

In the US, over 129 million pigs were sold in 2019, worth over $22 billion. The US pig industry supports about half a million jobs.

An agreement between the two countries regarding ASF in feral pigs was signed March 3 by CFIA Canadian Chief Veterinarian Dr. Jaspinder Komal and USDA Chief Veterinarian Dr. Burke Healey.