African Swine Fever Keeps Spreading in Russia

October 23, 2013 — 

African swine fever [ASF] keeps spreading in Russia despite the harsh pre-emptive measures the authorities have been taking. Outbreaks have been registered in 15 regions of the country. The authorities have declared a comprehensive policy of eliminating pig-breeding at private household-run farms and old livestock farms unable to guarantee the proper level of protection. However, the overall [number of] livestock has not shrunk, because the productivity of major agricultural companies is growing. Yet, the spreading ASF has put a big question mark over the future of this branch of livestock farming in Russia.

The federal veterinary and phytosanitary watchdog (Rosselkhoznadzor) on Tuesday [15 Oct 2013] issued a negative forecast regarding a future ASF situation, which is harmless to human beings but lethal for pigs.

The ASF does not respond to treatment or preventive vaccination. Only tough quarantine measures and physical elimination of all livestock can stop the disease. In Russia the virus has been spreading since 2007. Hundreds of thousands of animals have had to be eliminated since then.

In 2013, a total of 89 sites & areas at risk and [coincidentally] 89 infected facilities have been detected, the deputy chief of Rosselkoznadzor, Nikolai Vlasov, told a round-table discussion on Tuesday [15 Oct 2013]. "The rate has never been as high. Normally, the [total] is under 100," he said.

At present there are 2 expanding hotbeds of ASF, where both domestic and wild animals continue to fall ill. One is in the southern part of the centre of the Rostov Region [Oblast], and the other, in the Tver Region [Oblast] and the adjoining areas.

"The disease has gone beyond the usual bounds to have engulfed 5 regions. Also, it has spread into Belarus. These hotbeds are about to pool into one and traditional pig breeding here may become impossible. The forecast of the situation is negative," the sanitary watchdog said.

For quite a long time wild boars were suspected of spreading this disease. However, it has turned out that they are not responsible and become infected only after domestic animals.

Back in 2011 the Ministry of Agriculture said that if active measures against the ASF fail to be taken at once, Russia's pig livestock may disappear altogether. "If we don't act now, the country's whole pig livestock may be lost," the then agriculture minister, Yelena Skrynnik, said.

Last July [2012] Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a government meeting the situation was very tense. Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, responsible for agriculture, said individual households and small farms should be banned from breeding pigs because they are unable to provide the proper degree of protection. The function of managing quarantine measures must be delegated to the federal level. In his opinion, only large livestock farms are capable of protecting animals from African swine fever. About 30 percent of Russia's pig livestock is kept by households, and another 15 percent, by outdated farms with poor levels of biological protection.

The Krasnodar city Duma last January [2012] voted for special rules obliging household owners to reduce the number of animals they keep to 3. In fact, the measure deprived private farmers of their commercial herd -- the animals they might have sold on the market at a profit. These and other measures in fact completely eliminated the Krasnodar Region's entire pig livestock, estimated at 400,000 to 500,000 head.

Several governors last June [2012] introduced regional bans on breeding pigs at private households. The Belgorod Region [Oblast], which is Russia's number one pig breeding area (it accounts for 44 percent of the livestock in the Central Federal District and for 17.6 percent in Russia), has begun a program for buying out pigs from private household owners at RUB 60 (less than USD 2) per one kilogram of live weight. According to some reports, the removal of pigs from private households and their subsequent elimination was not always smooth. Some even likened its scale to that of Stalin's crackdown on wealthy peasant farmers in the early 1930s.

The agrarian trading system AGRORU.com says that of all the pigs eliminated as a result of the anti-epizootic measures, more than 90 percent were slaughtered for pre-emptive reasons. In other words, they had been healthy.

This year [2013] the number of animals at private households will shrink at least by 10 percent. However, the authorities promise that Russia is not faced with a shortage of pork. Industrial enterprises and large agricultural holdings will be prepared to fully compensate for the loss.

Nevertheless these measures are changing the line-up of forces on the Russian pork market -- the minor producers, who just 5 years ago [2008] were providing more than half of the overall amount of pork, have been gradually ceding positions, while the overall pig livestock in the country has been on the [increase].

According to statistics available on the portal <http://meatinfo.ru>;, all types of farms as of 1 Jul 2013 kept 20.5 million pigs, which is 6.5 percent more than on the same date last year [2012]. As much as 72 percent of that amount (14.8 million head) belonged to agricultural organizations, where the growth by 1 Jul 2013 reached 15.5 percent, while the households and private farms in the same period showed a decline in livestock by 11 percent (to 5.2 million head) and by 13 percent (570,000 head respectively).

-- Communicated by: Sabine Zentis Castleview English Longhorns Gut Laach, Nideggen Germany <cvlonghorns@aol.com>

Source: Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS) [edited] <http://www.itar-tass.com/c39/914705.html>;