The U.S. pork industry’s priorities this year include trade, ag labor and foreign animal disease prevention. As part of that, the National Pork Board made a strategic investment to prevent diseases, like African Swine Fever, including the development a new program called Agview.
The free, technology solution provides traceability for pork producers. With enough voluntary participants, AgView will help the industry rapidly contain an FAD outbreak. This will allow regionalized pork export bans so trade can normalize more quickly in the event of an outbreak.
National Pork Board CEO Bill Even says, “So, it’s owned by the producer, the producer controls their data but in the event of an emergency like a Foreign Animal Disease they can share that data really quickly digitally with the state veterinarian. That’s going to be really important so A, we can manage the disease and B they can actually get their businesses back up and running in time.”
The big question is can U.S. producers actually keep ASF out of the country?
Even says, “We think that prevention is the best practice so we’re really focused on prevention and working with Custom and Border protection and also working with the USDA.”
USDA is providing technical support but has also stepped up with $500 million of Commodity Credit Corporation funds to combat Foreign Animal Diseases, which is unprecedented. The pork industry is also working with USDA, and the states on emergency response plans in the event of an outbreak.
