African Swine Fever Expands, Chinese Buying From Argentina

(ROME, ITALY) Losses from African swine fever (ASF) continue to mount across Southeast Asia as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports new outbreaks in China and Vietnam last week. ASF is a fatal animal disease affecting pigs and wild hogs a 100 percent case rate of death but poses no risk to humans. There are no vaccines against the virus, but the virus can be destroyed by heating to extremely high temperatures – thus the need for culling animals in affected herds. The disease is decimating China’s pork industry, by far the biggest in the world. The country’s pig population could shrink by a third this year, up to 200 million animals, because of disease and culls. Ironically, 2019 is the year of the pig in the Chinese lunar calendar. American pork producers were looking at opportunities to help fill the void, however one Chinese news agency is reporting Argenpork, a consortium of pork exporting firms in Argentina will be sending their first shipments in July and will keep on closing new deals continuously. Currently, there are three companies authorized to export to China. For the U.S., now entangled in a year-long trade dispute with China, shipments last week totaled 7,300 metric tons to the Chinese, less than the weekly export volume sent to Mexico.