In a new video, NPA chief executive Zoe Davies explains how diseases like African swine fever (ASF) affect farming and wider rural communities.
Zoe, who was working on the first farm to be identified with classical swine fever in the 2000 outbreak, explains the devastating impact of these types of disease have on pigs, farms and the people who work on them. Affected premises would have to be shut down for at least three months, while the £350 million pork export market would be ‘annihilated’.
An ASF outbreak would also have a serious impact on the wider rural community, as large parts of the countryside would have to be shut down, she adds.
She concludes by reiterating the steps anyone keeping pigs needs to take to keep the disease out of their herds, including not feeding food waste to their animals.
The video is one of a series warning producers about the risks of bringing ASF into the country, also featuring the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s (APHA) Susanna Williamson, the British Pig Association’s Michaela Giles and Linda Dixon, of the Pirbright Institute.
You can view them all here