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The prevention and control of African swine fever has become normal practise in mainland China but official reports on the African swine fever epidemic in China have been sporadic, seemingly with the intention of downplaying the seriousness of the problem. On April 7, Henan Shuanghui Investment and Development Co., Ltd., a leading company in China’s meat industry, revealed on an investor interactive platform that the African swine fever epidemic will be an uncertain factor affecting the price trend of live pigs this year and needs close attention. China had a large-scale outbreak of African swine fever from August 2018 to...

China’s agriculture ministry on April 5 reported an outbreak of African swine fever in the Xinjiang region, marking the third occasion the region spotted cases since February. The outbreak occurred on a farm with 599 pigs under Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a state-owned economic and paramilitary entity under U.S. sanctions over human rights abuses in the region. Thirty-three pigs were infected and six died, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a statement. Local authorities have culled the remaining live pigs in the affected zone and halted transports of hog or related products in and out of...

China announced Saturday it was banning imports of pork products from Germany after the European country confirmed its first case of African swine fever. Germany is Europe’s biggest pork producer and recently saw a surge in demand from China after it suffered an outbreak of the same disease. Scientists detected swine fever in a dead wild boar in the eastern state of Brandenburg, the German agricultural ministry said on Thursday. Authorities had been concerned about the disease crossing into the country from neighboring Poland after a spate of cases were detected there last year. China responded to the news by...

Nearly 30,000 pigs have died from African swine fever (ASF) in Indonesia's North Sumatra province as of Dec. 15, causing millions of dollars of economic losses as authorities try to quarantine the areas affected, officials said on Wednesday. The Agriculture Ministry has declared an outbreak of the highly contagious virus in the country and said it is contained only in some parts of North Sumatra, minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo told reporters. "Very serious handling is being carried out, including isolating those areas," Limpo said. Fadjar Sumping Tjatur Rassa, director of animal health at the Agriculture Ministry, said that ASF has...

An epidemic of African Swine Fever is sweeping through China's hog farms, and the effects are rippling across the globe, because China is a superpower of pork. Half of the world's pigs live in China — or at least they did before the epidemic began a year ago. "Every day, we hear of more outbreaks," says Christine McCracken, a senior analyst at RaboResearch, which is affiliated with the global financial firm Rabobank. McCracken and her colleagues now estimate that by the end of 2019, China's production of pork could be cut in half. "That's roughly 300 million to 350 million...

China’s food supply is being imperiled as new reports warn that up to 50 percent of China’s 440 million pigs are now at risk from African Swine Fever infection. The South China Morning Post reported that Chairman Chan Kin Yip of the Federation of Hong Kong Agricultural Associations claimed that Chinese mainland pig farmers told him African Swine Fever has spread to 30 percent of mainland pigs, while another Hong Kong pig farmer based in China told Yip the exposure rate is as high as 50 percent. With $23.8 billion of agricultural imports from the U.S. in 2017, retaliatory tariffs...

... Belgium, where eight cases were confirmed, as of September 25, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health. The most recent cases, however, were reported September 25 in a Chinese slaughterhouse in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, according to the organization. There have been 29 outbreaks in China since the first case was reported August 3. China has culled nearly 40,000 pigs in response, according to the the organization's database. The virus reached China this summer and arrived in Western Europe for the first time in September in a separate simultaneous outbreak, leaving officials worried. As of Friday,...

Denmark’s conservative parties have backed a motion to erect a 70-kilometer-long fence along the country’s border with Germany in a measure to protect pork exports. The government and parliamentary ally the Danish People’s Party agreed on Thursday on a number of proposals aimed at preventing the African swine fever virus from spreading amongst the country’s large pig population. Those measures include a fence to run along a large stretch of the border with Germany. “I do not want to take any risk. We have an export industry worth 11 billion kroner (€1.5 billion) annually, which could be put at risk,”...