A wild boar in eastern Germany has been diagnosed with deadly African swine fever, German Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner announced on Thursday. This makes the fear of many German pig farmers a reality, because this will hit exports to countries outside Europe hard.
German pig farmers already started to sweat in April when a first case of contagious swine fever was diagnosed in western Poland, close to the German border. The fear stems from the nature of the virus: pigs often die within ten days of being infected. The virus is not dangerous to humans.
The contamination is likely to cause many countries outside Europe to stop importing German pork. That would be a hard blow for the German economy, because Germany is the largest pork producer in the European Union. It is not clear whether the farmers can still sell their products on the European market.
The German pork could count on a lot of interest from China, because that country was hit hard by African swine fever last year. The Chinese are now expected to look to other European pork producers, such as Spain and Denmark.
The market price for pork is expected to rise as a result of the new contamination.
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