African Swine Fever Outbreaks in China Shows ASF Isn’t Under Control

The African Swine Fever (ASF) issues aren’t over in China. After ASF started to decimate the country’s hog herd in 2018, China said 2021 will continue to be year of rebuilding the hog herd, but now more cases of ASF continue to pop up showing the outbreaks may be worse than originally reported.

China Ministry of Agriculture said this week another ASF outbreak was reported in Sichuan Province, China’s largest pork producing province.  Reports show the outbreak was found in a truck carrying 10 pigs, two of which were dead. The ministry said the cause of the outbreak was most likely rooted from the illegal transportation of pigs.

This is the second case reported in less than a week. Reuters reported new cases were detected last week in Aba prefecture in the southwestern province of Sichuan, and the city of Xiangyang in the central province of Hubei.

Reuters reported that outbreak killed 38 pigs on a farm of 127 hogs in Sichuan, and the cases in Hubei were also detected on a truck of piglets being transported illegally from another province where of 165 piglets, 10 were infected, and five had died.

Analysts and market insiders agree: the ASF situation in China is more than likely worse than being reported and not under control

“We keep getting these tweets and kind of propaganda stories that China has exceeded their previous high in their hog herd and they're back to normal, but yet they continue to buy pork aggressively. And so something is disconnected there” says Chip Nellinger of Blue Reef Agri-Marketing. “It's likely they haven't figured out the ASF issues, they're probably as bad or close to as bad as ever. And they have attempted to build those hog herds up. But they haven't been quite as successful maybe as what they would like to have the rest of the world believe.”

Farm Journal economist and host of AgriTalk radio Chip Flory says the situation could bode well for continued pork exports into China, but it could eliminate some of the demand on the feed grains side.

“The thing that concerns me the most is when we look at those demand numbers, and you look at how much we were relying on export demand from China, and the problems with African swine fever. I think it's worse than what they're letting on,” says Flory. “And they're having a devil of a time trying to get that disease under control in that country. The variants are more serious than what they've let on so my concern is we could go through another demand disruption for grains because the ASF in China.”

Farm Journal Washington correspondent Jim Wiesemeyer reported China said it will crack down harder on the illegal production and sale of ASF vaccines.

“There is still no approved vaccine for the virus,” says Wiesemeyer. “There have been reports ASF is again spreading across China in both a natural mutation and in a form delivered via these illegal vaccines. These new strains of ASF are said to be less deadly, but also harder to detect. China’s ag ministry is urging local governments to identify any positive samples of the virus and report any strains with artificial gene deletions to provincial veterinary authorities. Farmers are banned from sending infected pigs to slaughterhouses.’

Wiesemeyer says localities are also being urged to increase punishment for illicit activities related to fake vaccines, with drug companies to be fined a maximum amount, and operation licenses to be revoked and those in charge banned from producing veterinary products for life. China is even offering a reward for it.

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China Confirms African Swine Fever Outbreaks in Sichuan, Hubei Provinces

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