Even healthy animals from farms in “at-risk” areas suffer the consequences of swine fever, ending up being sold at a ridiculously low price, when their meat ends up in the Italian supply chain and resold at the same price as meat far from the outbreak areas.
This is what emerged from the conference entitled "Epidemiology of Psa, knowing its origins to combat its spread", which was held this afternoon at CremonaFiere, as part of the 79th edition of the Cremona International Livestock Fairs. The meeting, organized by Confagricoltura Lombardia and Libera Associazione Agricoltori Cremonesi, was attended, among others, by Davide Berta, President of the Regional Federation of Pig Farming Products of Confagricoltura Lombardia, Antonio Boselli, President of Confagricoltura Lombardia, Silvia Bellini, Head of Epidemiological Surveillance Structures at the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna and Alessandro Beduschi, Councilor for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests of the Lombardy Region.
For over a decade now, the African Swine Fever epidemic has been affecting some European countries, including Italy. Between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, despite the continuation of surveillance activities, an intensification of measures aimed at controlling the wild population and the implementation of research and reporting activities of carcasses in the environment, the spread of the disease continued, especially in the infection cluster of Northern Italy, causing a significant expansion of the area subjected to restriction. Numerous cases have been reported in the vicinity of the Ticino Park in the province of Milan, others in the province of Pavia and in some areas of Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont, indicating a spread of the disease through natural corridors. However, the extraordinary measures to limit the spread of the virus, with the establishment of "at risk" areas where outbreaks have been identified and which include neighboring farms, albeit with healthy animals, are causing serious damage.
The number one danger for pig farms, as is known, are wild boars, as underlined by the Regional Councilor for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests Alessandro Beduschi. “The plague is spreading, it requires almost maniacal care, the same care that we reserved for ourselves for Covid must be put into our farms – declared Councilor Beduschi – we must certainly act on another front, such as the observation of wild boars, which must be contained, it is useless for wild fauna to continue to be observed as some policies at a global and national level have done until yesterday. Wild boars follow man and therefore have moved to the plains, and we must protect our livestock territory, which between Cremona, Mantua and Brescia has its treasure, more than 4 million animals cannot be at the mercy of this speculation”.
The observation of dead wild boars is essential for the prevention of new outbreaks, and in this sense there is news, just as reinforcements are expected from Europe. "We have changed the commissioner, who is in Brussels today to defend our honor, and has given a much higher and more concrete speed to the containment of wild boars - continued the assessor - we have obtained, with the joint action of the Ministry of Agriculture and that of Health, also the help of the army that we will finally see on the field in the coming months also with a view to containment and above all civil protection, which we are protocolizing. The third intervention that the institutions must foresee is the economic one – continued Beduschi – we have managed to guarantee the call for tenders to be issued by the end of the year, the allocation of 10 million euros, a further tranche of future investments and in addition, together with Minister Lollobrigida we are evaluating asking for what is right to ask, help from the European Community, because if Europe must be a parent entity of our territories, it must act to implement the money that Italy will guarantee, duplicating it. Furthermore, the regional call for tenders SRD02 of the total 61 million euros has been opened, 20 million are dedicated to the pig sector. The Lombardy Region is at your side and aware that we cannot abandon you”.
