China's Sichuan province becomes 18th to report African swine fever
BEIJING: China's agricultural ministry confirmed on Friday (Nov 16) the
first outbreak of deadly African swine fever in the southwest province
of Sichuan, the country's top pig-producing region, raising the
likelihood of a major impact to pork supplies in coming months.
The highly contagious disease was discovered on a farm of 40 pigs in
Yibin city, in Sichuan's southeast, making it the 18th province or
municipality to report an outbreak of African swine fever since it was
first detected in China in early August.
"With the new case in Sichuan, all major pig production provinces have
now fallen. The situation is very severe," said Yao Guiling, an analyst
with consultancy China-America Commodity Data Analytics.
China is the world's top pork producer and slaughters around 700 million
pigs a year. Sichuan produced almost 66 million last year, according to
official data, more than any other province.
Sichuan is also the province with the highest per capita consumption of
pork in China at 36 kg (79 pounds), according to data from the National
Statistics Bureau.
Provincial authorities last week in Sichuan issued a ban on the import
of all live hogs and hog products from other regions in a bid to keep
the disease out.
But Yibin is close to Sichuan's borders with Chongqing municipality and
Guizhou province, both of which have already reported outbreaks.
Pig prices in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, are currently the highest in
the country, thanks to strong local demand and a bump-up after the
disease infected nearby provinces.
Prices fell by 0.2 yuan on Friday, though, from a day earlier to 17.7
yuan (US$2.55) per kg, according to data collected by China-America
Commodity Analytics.
The discovery of African swine fever in Sichuan comes less than three
months ahead of Lunar New Year celebrations in early February that mark
China's peak demand period for pork.
There is no cure and no vaccine for the disease, and the virus can survive for weeks in pork and animal feed.
https://www.geezgo.com/sps/46779
Join Geezgo for free. Use Geezgo's end-to-end encrypted Chat with your Closenets (friends, relatives, colleague etc) in personalized ways.>>
No comments