African Swine Fever (ASF) has inflicted a loss of over 40 billion rubles, or $ 634 million on the Russian hog raising industry over a period of eight years, the Director General of the National Union of Swine Rearing, Yuri Kovalyov said on Dec. 2 at a conference of executives of Russian agricultural holding companies.
"This year was the most difficult one in the past eight years if you speak about monies," he said. "We’ve already burned more than 2 million hog carcasses over this period and our losses have exceeded 40 billion rubles but still the epidemic continues."
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He pointed to the uncontrolled keeping of hogs on private households and the absence of organized recycling of carcasses.
To fight with the spread of the ASF, a package of measure is essential, Kovalyov said.
He specified the steps he viewed as much-needed ones, saying they are "(…) changes in the principles of operation of the state veterinary control service, continued efforts to tighten veterinary safety at hog husbandry farms, bringing elementary order into legislative norms, stock taking, control, and observance of rules."
Source: TASS