ASF spares Leyte towns in poverty reduction program

The dreaded African swine fever (ASF) that has affected three municipalities in Leyte spared the multi-billion poverty alleviation program of the provincial government.

Governor Leopoldo Petilla said none of the communities involved in the swine fattening project of the Leyte Economic Program (LEP) were affected by ASF.

Under the program, swines were quarantined and their houses built away from residential areas.

LEP was designed to be ASF-ready “so that when ASF comes it will survive and will be spared,” Petilla said.

Swine fattening is one component of the LEP, the flagship program of the provincial government aimed at reducing poverty incidence in the province to a single digit by 2022. It is implemented in the remotest communities, most of them at the center of armed conflicts.

Data from the Department of Agriculture regional office showed that Eastern Visayas has a total hog population of 217,441 heads valued at P1.7 billion. As of December 2020,

Leyte province had 127,725 hogs.

Residents are organized into farmers’ associations and are provided with livelihood projects after undergoing three-month intensive training on organic farming, livestock and poultry production, values formation and specific training for other livelihoods.

Of the almost 300 farmers associations implementing the program, over 150 of them are engaged in swine fattening. Each community is provided with nine gilts and one boar for breeding.

The program gets the lion’s share of the annual investment of Leyte province. In 2018, LEP was allotted P3.9 billion of the P7.6 billion investment plan.

Petilla said LEP made the province food-sufficient despite the Covid-19 pandemic, except for eggs where supplies are obtained from Bantayan Island in Cebu.

ASF has affected 17 villages in Abuyog, Javier and La Paz towns. A total of 1,451 have been culled as of 20 January in an effort to contain the spread of ASF.

Petilla said that under the program, swines were quarantined and their houses built away from residential areas.