Spread of African Swine Fever Continues in Multiple Regions

May 27, 2024

The Associate Director of the Swine Health Information Center says ongoing spread of African Swine Fever remains the main challenge facing the global pork sector.The Swine Health Information Center's monthly global swine disease monitoring report, released as part of its May eNewsletter examines the continued spread of African Swine Fever.

SHIC Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton says ASF remains the primary challenge across multiple regions, including Europe, Asia and Africa.

Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Center:

It really has seen a continued spread in multiple areas but also resurgence in areas that were once thought to have been quiet.For example, there's been five different European countries that were positive over this last month, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, also in Serbia and Ukraine and Greece and Romania.
Sweden saw one of its first cases in 2024 from a wild boar diagnosis.

Unfortunately, ASF has a very wide range globally and we have seen it have relatively rapid spread since 2018 in China and Asia, in Polynesia, as well as into the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean and Africa, so a lot of areas that have seen initial outbreaks of ASF.Many are continuing to still have challenges and face problems associated with ASF, not only in domestic swine populations but also in wild boar populations.

Once example that can be noted on the global disease report is the spread across the Philippines and that is a visual showing of the progression of the disease across that nation and how it's impacting their swine production.Dr. Becton notes other diseases include Classical Swine Fever, which has seen a resurgence in eastern Russia as well as Foot and Mouth Disease in other areas, such as Pakistan.She says, even though ASF presents the main challenge, there still are other significant foreign animal diseases that will continue to be monitored.

Source : Farmscape.ca

Video: Swine Industry Advances: Biodigesters Lower Emissions and Increase Profits

Analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG emissions) in the Canadian swine sector found that CH4 emissions from manure were the largest contributor to the overall emissions, followed by emissions from energy use and crop production.

This innovative project, "Improving Swine Manure-Digestate Management Practices Towards Carbon Neutrality With Net Zero Emission Concepts," from Dr. Rajinikanth Rajagopal, under Swine Cluster 4, seeks to develop strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

While the management of manure can be very demanding and expensive for swine operations, it can also be viewed as an opportunity for GHG mitigation, as manure storage is an emission source built and managed by swine producers. Moreover, the majority of CH4 emissions from manure occur during a short period of time in the summer, which can potentially be mitigated with targeted intervention.

In tandem with understanding baseline emissions, Dr. Rajagopal's work focuses on evaluating emission mitigation options. Manure additives have the potential of reducing manure methane emissions. Additives can be deployed relatively quickly, enabling near-term emission reductions while biodigesters are being built. Furthermore, additives can be a long-term solution at farms where biogas is not feasible (e.g., when it’s too far from a central digester). Similarly, after biodigestion, additives can also be used to further reduce emissions from storage to minimize the carbon intensity of the bioenergy.