This capital town of Antique has already incurred PHP1.2 million in losses due to hog mortalities caused by African swine fever (ASF). San Jose de Buenavista Municipal Agriculture Officer Rene Barte said 10 barangays have reported a total of 106 hog mortalities as of July 3. 'We were able to receive reports of hog mortalities from the 19 swine raisers,' he said in an interview on Tuesday. He added that they have already submitted a report of hog deaths to the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) since most of the affected swine raisers have enrolled with the state agriculture insurance. 'We have 324 individuals or hog raisers who had insured their hogs prior to the spread of the ASF,' Barte said, adding that almost 50 percent of the 700 hog raisers in San Jose de Buenavista have PCIC insurance. With the indemnity that is guaranteed by the PCIC, he said the local government has no immediate plan of declaring a state of calamity. The agriculture officer, meantime, has reminded hog raisers to always secure a barangay health certificate before they have their swine slaughtered at the municipal abattoir in Barangay San Pedro as provided for in Executive Order 42 signed by Mayor Elmer Untaran on June 27. He added that as a consequence there are meat vendors who already complained of having less supply of pork at the trade town because farmers are the ones selling their slaughtered animals to their neighbors. The EO prohibits backyard slaughter and those brought to the abattoir can only be sold in the barangay where the hog came from. Traders also took advantage of the ASF scare and reduced the live weight price of hogs to PHP57 per kilogram from the previous PHP120 to PHP140 per kilogram. Barte urged hog raisers to be careful in dealing with traders and implement biosecurity measures while officials of unaffected barangays have to strictly implement their border control. (PNA)
Source: Philippines News Agency
