African swine fever has hammered 74 countries since 2005.
“The Alberta hog industry, it would it bring it to our knees,” said Weldner, manager of Heartland Colony’s hog operations for 23 years.
“Every week there’s new piglets born, every week there has to be pigs sent to the market and that’s all the room that most farms would have,” said Weldner. “In the pork industry, the max that you could hold off shipping out animals would be five to six days. The affected areas would immediately have to start looking at some form of euthanization, even in an area that is not affected.
The minister has been working on this issue since she was given the portfolio 3½ years ago, and noted the government has been working with the U.S. prior to this. Weldner highlighted biosecurity controls currently in place at commercial operations, and it would be extremely unlikely that a commercial barn would be a site of infection if African swine fever does come to Canada.Article content
“Would you use it when you’ve got absence of the disease? Probably not,” said Alberta’s top vet. “Would you use it when you start to see early signs of an outbreak? Yes, potentially. If you’ve got pretty significant signs of outbreak, it probably makes the question easier to answer in terms of yes.”Article content
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