Mercolleida calls for the culling of 30,000 pigs in the affected area

Brussels / BarcelonaMercolleida, the main wholesale market for the pork sector, has lowered the price of pork again by 10 cents per kilo and warns that the situation "remains serious" due to the outbreak of African swine fever, despite some positive results from bilateral negotiations with countries like China. The leading market for the pork sector is calling for the culling of approximately 30,000 pigs in the affected area and the elimination of all wild boars in the region.

The benchmark pork price regulator in Spain has approved a further price reduction following the one implemented on Monday, which was also 10 cents, and has warned that slaughterhouses will run out of space for frozen meat "within days." The general manager, Miquel Àngel Bergés, has said that it is "essential" to cull the wild boars within a 20-kilometer radius of the outbreak as quickly as possible, and also to cull the 30,000 fattening pigs on farms in the area near the outbreak. "We need to find a quick solution to cull the pigs and find a way to dispose of them," Bergés said after another extraordinary meeting of the price boards for fattening pigs, swine, and suckling pigs to analyze the impact of the latest cases detected in Collserola. The general manager of the livestock market assured that the request to cull "all" the wild boars in the Collserola area and to "empty all the fattening farms" is "a proposal from the entire industrial livestock and pig farming sector." "Everyone is aware of the seriousness of the situation," he stated.

Four new positive cases

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture has reported that four new positive cases have been found among the samples analyzed, bringing the total number of dead wild boars testing positive for African swine fever to 13. The European Commission has maintained the 20-kilometer radius of restrictions for the African swine fever (ASF) outbreak in Catalonia from the point where the first cases of infected wild boar were found, but has expanded the total number of municipalities included within the perimeter from 64 to 91, as they were tangentially within the affected area. "In practice, we are still operating under the 20-kilometer radius," and it affects 39 farms, the same number that were already affected, the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food, Òscar Ordeig, stated at a press conference on Thursday.

Thus, the European executive is keeping the Lleida and Girona regions, as well as the Osona and Lluçanès districts, outside the scope of the decision. These are key areas where a significant part of the country's pig farming sector is concentrated. The decision was published this Thursday in Official Journal of the European Union After a European Commission delegation traveled to Catalonia yesterday and set limits on pork exports, Ordeig stated that Commission officials were "pleasantly surprised" by the resources deployed by public administrations. The perimeter affected by the restrictions defines which areas can sell pork products to other parts of Spain and the European Union, impacting any regionalization that non-EU countries might implement. Sources at the European Commission explained to ARA that, although the decision is based solely on health factors, it directly indicates the list of territories with which the sector can trade. Thus, within the Barcelona area, farms in Osona, Lluçanès, and almost all of Bages will be able to continue selling to all member states of the European Union. In fact, the exclusion zone does not include any municipalities in the Lleida and Girona regions, where there is also a high number of pig farms and other pig businesses, nor the Tarragona districts, where the sector has a smaller presence. The area delimited by the European Commission affects 91 Catalan municipalities and includes almost all of Baix Llobregat, Vallès Oriental and Occidental, Barcelonès, Maresme, and a small part of the Bages, Anoia, and Alt Penedès districts. In this way, Brussels has avoided including the entire province of Barcelona in the restrictions, which was one of the situations most feared by the Catalan pig sector, and especially in Osona, or having it cover a large area, potentially affecting another region with a high pig population density, such as Segrià.

Following Brussels' emergency decision this Thursday, the next step is for the EU's Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed to ratify or amend the European Commission's decision at its next meeting, scheduled for December 16 and 17. However, the publication in the Official Journal of the European Union mandates that the measures decided by the Commission be applied "immediately" in the affected area until the committee's final opinion is issued. "Due to the urgency of the epidemiological situation [...] it is important that the control measures be applied as soon as possible," the legal text states. In any case, it is worth recalling that the ban on exports to countries outside the European Union initially affected all farms in Catalonia and the entire country, without exception, when the epidemic was declared in Spain last week. Following the declaration, the Ministry of Agriculture has had to negotiate, country by country, the regionalization of export bans so that farms not located in areas affected by African swine fever can continue exporting.

More personnel on the perimeter

To contain the outbreak within the established radius, authorities have increased the number of deployed personnel to approximately one thousand. In recent hours, members of the Catalan Fire Service and the Barcelona Fire Service have joined the control efforts, along with two canine units provided by the governments of Andorra and the Autonomous Community of Madrid. Ordeig has appealed to the public to refrain from any leisure activities within the affected area, which includes the Collserola Natural Park. He expressed his gratitude for the public's cooperation in identifying potentially infected wild boars: as of Thursday, the 112 emergency hotline had received 876 calls related to African swine fever (ASF). Today, the deployed team completed a thorough search of the terrain within the 6-kilometer inner perimeter to locate dead wild boars or other potentially contaminated biological remains. Agents are conducting a second sweep in parallel, searching the area within the second 20-kilometer perimeter. Ordeig also confirmed that weekly testing will continue at the 39 farms within the restricted zone, where no animals infected with the African swine fever virus have been detected so far.

Few positive cases

For his part, Ordeig assured this Thursday that, for the moment, "the vast majority" of dead wild boars found in Collserola are testing negative for the virus. "The positive cases today remain at nine; we have no more for now," said the regional minister, who noted that the percentage of infected wild boars "is small" compared to the total number of cases analyzed. He added that officers continue "collecting, as a precaution, dead animals that have been shot, captured, or involved in traffic accidents." To date, the laboratory of the Animal Health Research Center (Cresa-Irta) has studied about fifty dead wild boars, of which nine were considered suspected cases of the disease and, in accordance with legal protocols, were sent to the Central Veterinary Laboratory—located in Algete, near Madrid—for further analysis, where they were definitively confirmed as positive.

On the other hand, Ordeig explained in an interview on 2Cat that it is "almost certain" that swine fever entered Catalonia due to "human factors," most likely through biological remains of infected pigs. The Catalan government suggests that these remains could be food scraps—the so-called sandwich theory– or other remains (for example, blood or pieces of skin) that would have arrived with a vehicle, probably via the AP-7 motorway. However, Ordeig added that it will still take some time to know its exact origin, but he has already ruled out that the virus arrived via an infected wild boar.

African swine fever (ASF) is a disease caused by a virus that has a high mortality rate among wild boars and is highly contagious. However, the virus has no effect on the health of humans or any other animal species. The first cases of the outbreak were two dead wild boars found last week in Cerdanyola del Vallès.