Disease threat to $750m industry
Pig farmers are demanding the Government ban pork imports from Belgium to guard against the spread of the highly contagious African swine fever.
Although harmless to people if they eat infected meat, the disease is often fatal to pigs and entire herds need to be culled to prevent further spread of the infection.
New Zealand’s $750 million a year pork industry is at risk if the disease arrives. It has been sweeping through Europe and Asia since 2014 and has just been detected in Belgium.
New Zealand imports fresh pork from four European countries – Belgium, Poland, Estonia and Italy.
NZ Pork says this has not been heated or cured – the recommended treatments to kill the ASF virus.
However, a Ministry for Primary Industries spokeswoman has rejected the claim.
‘‘Fresh or frozen pork is only imported from ASF-free countries, zones or regions. All other pork products imported to New Zealand have undergone a heat treatment process, such as canning, which destroys ASF virus,’’ she said. ‘‘MPI is aware of and actively monitoring the ASF situation in Europe.’’
NZ Pork chairman Eric Roy said, the disease was continuing to spread.
‘‘Given this appears to be a developing situation, we should also be looking at when the ASF status was declared and what is the status of any pork products currently in transit, ’’ he asked.
‘‘Is it good enough to rely on other countries to tell us the products they are looking to sell on our local market are safe when we are potentially putting our whole industry at risk?’’
In the last year 1500 tonnes of fresh pork has been imported from Belgium and 1400 tonnes from Poland.
Australia and 12 other countries intend to stop imports from Belgium. They are South Korea, China, Taiwan, Belarus, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, South Africa, Serbia, Singapore, Uruguay, and Malaysia.