Benguet LGU battles ASF anew

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet: The municipal government is aggressively working on the mandatory registration of backyard and commercial hog raisers in the town’s 16 villages following the reemergence of the African swine fever (ASF) in four villages

Mayor Romeo Salda said village officials were tasked to implement the mandatory registration of commercial and backyard

hog raisers in their areas of jurisdiction.

Under the ongoing mandatory registration of hog raisers, individuals and companies are compelled to declare their hog raising activity, especially the number of hogs they are currently taking care, of for monitoring purposes.

Salda reported that ASF had been discovered in some swines being raised by individuals in the villages of Lubas, Bahong, Puguis and Wangal, prompting authorities to raise the alarms on the reemergence of the virus.

The local chief executive said immediate disinfection of these hog raising areas was done in these villages although the infected pigs were already culled, placing the situation under control.

Salda noted that the culling of hogs within the 1-kilometer radius was not implemented because the areas where the infected hogs were discovered were far from the populated areas. Nonetheless, stringent monitoring activities are being done in the area to ensure the swine population would not be infected.

Hundreds of hogs in Barangay

Beckel were recently culled out of a commercial pig farm and a backyard farm after it was discovered that the swines were infected with ASF. This incidence placed the municipality under the red zone, which translates to stringent safety measures in the disposal of the culled pigs and its products.

Hog raisers voluntarily culled out the infected pigs from their backyard farms to prevent the spread of the ASF that might significantly affect the hog raising industry in the province, estimated at no less than a P100 million.

Salda reiterated that the ASF infection in the municipality was under control because of the timely reporting and the immediate interventions that were put in place by concerned experts that prevented the further spread of the animal virus to other villages in the municipality.

There will be constant monitoring of pig farms in the municipality with village teams deployed to do daily checks, Salda noted.