"The 90s plague was a wake-up call, a warning that the pork sector is dangerous."

LleidaAfrican swine fever (ASF) was first discovered in Kenya in 1910 and arrived in Europe in 1960, where it remained for over thirty years. The virus entered via a flight from Angola to Portugal. Leftover catering from that plane, already infected with ASF, was used to feed Portuguese pigs, starting the epidemic on the continent. And also in our country. This caused serious economic damage to a sector that was already important in those distant decades. Eradication of the virus was long and slow, until in 1994 Spain was finally declared free of ASF. But from then until the virus's return to Collserola just a few days ago, the pig farming sector has never been free of the disease. In between, there was another one: classical swine fever (CSF).

Although clinically both are very similar diseases with a high mortality rate, they are caused by different viruses (Pestivirus and AsfivirusThey differ in their mode of transmission (in CSF it can be both direct and indirect, and in ASF also by ticks) and also in environmental resistance (ASF is much more resistant). And there is an even more crucial difference: there is a vaccine for CSF and no effective treatment for ASF.

The worst CSF crisis in our country occurred between 1997 and 1998. In less than two years, a hundred outbreaks were declared in Spain, the vast majority in Catalonia (especially in Ponent). More than a million pigs were slaughtered; not only those that were infected, but also healthy ones that were quarantined a few kilometers from each outbreak.

This is what happened to Rossend Saltiveri, a livestock farmer from Ivars d'Urgell (Pla d'Urgell) and current head of the pig sector at Unió de Pagesos. An outbreak near his farm in mid-1997 forced him to halt the movement of his pigs. To reduce the chances of contagion on his farm, he ordered (like most farmers in the area) the slaughter of around 3,000 animals (piglets and adults), leaving only the farrowing sows alive. Killing them would have completely disrupted the farm's cycle and left it inactive for over a year and a half, unable to produce any more piglets.

In all the towns in Lleida affected by Classical Swine Fever (CSF), the same procedure was followed. Farmers (many through cooperatives or livestock associations) coordinated to eliminate the pigs with rifles. Then, in coordination with the local authorities, different sites were selected within each municipality to dig mass graves and bury the carcasses. "We were very well organized," Saltiveri recalls.

For a year, his farm remained empty, waiting for any new outbreaks to be declared. Those were agonizing months in which farms were paralyzed, only permitted to inseminate and fatten pigs, without being able to take them to slaughterhouses. "Unlike now, at least back then prices went up and we were paid market price for the slaughtered pigs," Saltiveri recalls.

The most grim memory of those years of slaughtering hundreds of thousands of pigs belongs to another farmer, Toni Jové. His farm in Torregrossa was indeed infected in 1997. He remembers when the first outbreak erupted on a farm in Bell-lloc. In just a few days, the virus traveled the eight kilometers from his town and penetrated his facilities. That outbreak forced him to completely eliminate his herd. "It was a monumental blow that warned me that pig farming is a very dangerous business," Jové confesses. "A business of blood and mud," he concludes.

For almost two years, his business was completely suspended. "It was like receiving a straight red card that didn't let me play a single minute," he says. But the setback wasn't purely economic, but above all emotional. Seeing the animals die from shotgun blasts and being buried in mass graves was like throwing away years of sacrifice. "It left us exhausted," Jové recalls. "Back then I was a young livestock farmer, full of enthusiasm, but the plague changed me; I've never shaken off that fear since."

Diversify or die

The 1997 plague caused a major economic setback for the sector. Farmers received compensation, but the tax repercussions and the drop in fair market prices after the epidemic triggered a significant crisis. "They paid us for the meat, but they didn't cover the workers' wages during so many months of inactivity," warns Josep Maria Sardana, a farmer from Arbeca. That plague subsequently led to the closure of more than 3,000 farms (17% of the total in Catalonia), most of them small producers who couldn't cope with the economic consequences. Some farmers still wonder: "Why weren't the animals allowed to be vaccinated before slaughter?" Although there was a vaccine for Classical Swine Fever (CSF), the scientific committee explained that "vaccination made the plague go undetected among vaccinated pigs, but they weren't completely immune," so caution was advised in its use.

"Luckily, we survived thanks to the diversification of our business," recalls Alfons Ramon, a retired livestock farmer with farms in the Lleida area, but also with significant fruit and cereal production that allowed him to make ends meet. "Without agriculture, I wouldn't have been able to cope with those years of unemployment," Ramon warns.

In 2001, there was another outbreak which, although much smaller, led to the lockdown and further culling of animals in the Pla de Lleida region. Dozens of farms were affected by two waves that began in Ponent and ended in the province of Barcelona.

"That second outbreak caught us with much more experience and wasn't as traumatic," acknowledges Eduard Cau, a livestock farmer from Puiggròs (Garrigues) who also had to cull all his fattening cattle in the first wave.

In any case, the African swine fever (ASF) and classical swine fever (CSF) epidemics and market forces have ultimately led to the disappearance of small pig farmers or, as a lesser evil, their integration into large meat groups. Experts warn that this trend could be unleashed by the current crisis.