Agricultural unions are calling on France this Wednesday, September 11, to eliminate “all wild boars” in an area around the border with Germany to prevent the introduction of African swine fever.
Agricultural unions are urging France on Wednesday to organize massive hunts to eliminate “all wild boars” in an area around the border with Germany to prevent the introduction of African swine fever, which is extremely deadly for pigs and disastrous for the livestock economy.
“We urgently request (…) a white zone on both sides of the Franco-German border west of the Rhine, in which all wild boars must be eliminated,” wrote several organisations of the majority agricultural union FNSEA in a press release: the departmental federations of Bas-Rhin and Moselle as well as the association of pork producers FNP.
A case of virus 78 km from the border
The aim is to “prevent the entry” into France of African swine fever from Germany, while the virus, which infects pigs and wild boars, has been “at the gates of Bas-Rhin and Moselle for several weeks”.
According to the latest bulletin from the French animal disease surveillance platform, dated September 10, “the case closest to the border with France remains 78 km away.”
The unions are now talking about a distance of 60 km and point out that “a wild boar can travel 20-30 km per day, especially during hunting season”. Not transmissible to humans, African swine fever (ASF) is a viral haemorrhagic disease with a mortality rate close to 100%.
No vaccine is available
Endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, ASF can spread from country to country through the movement of infected wild boars, vehicle wheels or a sandwich containing cold cuts from an infected pig.
In addition to the direct losses for farmers whose animals are euthanized, ASF can halt pork exports and disrupt the economy of the sector. This is what happened to Germany, previously the leading pork producer in the European Union, now dethroned by Spain, which suffered from the closure of the Chinese market.
France, the EU’s third largest pork producer, signed an agreement at the end of 2021 allowing it in principle to continue exporting to China from disease-free regions. This should help reduce the economic impact of an ASF outbreak, provided that Brittany, the main breeding region, is spared.
Request for a systematic biosecurity audit
The threat of the virus has been hanging over French pig farming for several years. In addition to Germany, ASF is also rife in northern Italy.
The disease was detected in wild boars in Belgium in 2018-2019, prompting France at the time to erect a fence of around 130 km on the border and to demarcate a white zone, depopulated of wild boars.
Agricultural unions are calling on the government on Wednesday to “build up a preventive stock of fences” and to organize “a systematic biosecurity audit” of all pig owners in the border area. They are calling for an order to “stop activity” in the event of a breach of the rules aimed at making farms impervious to diseases.
