With 17 of the 28 villages in San Jose de Buenavista reported hog mortalities due African swine fever (ASF), the local government unit of this capital town will focus on monitoring the animal disease here. Municipal Agriculture Officer (MAO) Rene Barte said in an interview Tuesday he will recommend to Mayor Elmer Untaran the lifting of the border control starting July 17, 2023, and their personnel to assist in the implementation of the biosecurity in farms. The municipality as of July 10 has recorded 240 hog mortalities amounting to PHP2.3 million in losses affecting 46 swine raisers. ‘MAO would rather focus now on monitoring the ASF cases in the barangays than implementing the border control,’ Barte said. He said farmers are instructed to immediately bury their dead hogs right in their farms to prevent the spread of the virus. ‘Migratory birds or even flies could also become carriers once they could get in contact with the ASF-infected hogs even if these are already dead,’ he said. Farmers with apparently healthy live weight are advised to install screens at their pig pens so migratory birds or flies carrying the ASF virus could not infect them. Meantime, the Municipality of Hamtic has already recorded 3,924 hog mortalities from 31 barangays with estimated losses of more than PHP36 million as of July 9. Hamtic MAO Isidro Ramos said in a separate interview that affected farmers have received emergency cash assistance totaling PHP18 million from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) secured by Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda and Rep. Antonio Agapito Legarda to assist hog raisers who lost their livelihood because of the ASF. ‘The hog raisers are really grateful for the assistance given them considering that they could not yet repopulate their farms until perhaps next year,’ Ramos said. He added that 525 hog raisers whose farms were severely affected by ASF received assistance ranging from PHP10,000 to PHP30,000 depending on the number of hog mortalities. Meanwhile, Senate Committee on Agriculture chairperson Senator Cynthia Villar said that the Department of Agriculture will soon be establishing border facilities in the country to ensure that farm animals are not carriers of any disease. ‘The border facilities will be established in Luzon, Visayas, and in Mindanao,’ she said in an interview on the sidelines of her speaking engagement at the University of Antique on Monday. She said that border facilities to be put up in the three major islands will serve as laboratories to check on transported animals so they can not infect other animals with possible diseases such as ASF. She also said that hopefully, the vaccine against ASF would soon be out in the market so hogs could be protected.

Source: Philippines News agency