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A task force of slaughterhouses equipped to process pork from areas affected by swine fever, in order not to give up putting it on the market. This is the plan that the Lombardy Region wants to work on, after last week two infected wild boar carcasses were found in the Pavia area, to protect its farmers and the entire processing industry from the economic catastrophe.
With over 2,700 farms and 4.1 million pigs, Lombardy alone represents half of all Italian pig farming. If swine fever were to take hold and the pigs reared within the infected areas were to be slaughtered, the national production of PDO and PGI meat and cured meats would be on its knees.
The slaughterhouse plan was proposed on June 30, during a meeting held in the Region and which involved the Ats, the farmers’ associations (CIA, Confagricoltura and Coldiretti) and those of the industrialists (Assica and Assocarni).
How does it work? “The European regulation – explains Davide Calderone, director of Assica – provides that animals from infected areas can also be slaughtered, provided that two conditions are met: the first is that the pigs must come from farms subject to “enhanced biosecurity” measures. . The second is that the designated slaughterhouses are able to guarantee the separation of the consignments”. At that point, the butchered meat can be marketed throughout the EU market, since swine fever is not transmitted to humans. However, exports to non-EU countries remain more problematic: “It depends on the agreements with the individual markets – says Calderone – Japan, China and Taiwan, for example, already today do not accept it”.
In Emilia Romagna, which hosts 12% of the pigs raised in Italy and slaughters 35%, with a great sense of foresight, the Region has already been working on a similar plan for some time. In Lombardy, where swine fever has already arrived, it is now a race against time. The first point is to strengthen the biosecurity of the farms: «Many measures are needed – explains Paolo Maccazzola, president of Cia Lombardia, who was at the table of the Region yesterday – from disinfecting the vehicles entering the farms to limiting access to representatives of the manufacturers of pesticides”. The trouble is that these are expensive interventions, which is why so far few have applied them.
Once the farms have been made safe, it will be necessary to collect the OK from the slaughterhouses capable of guaranteeing the double production track. The Lombardy Region then promised to intensify control measures using drones and the army, organized teams of hunters to carry out the killing of wild boars under the guidance of the Ats and made funds available to increase fences and isolate the areas where the infected carcasses were found.