African Swine Fever in Haiti and Dominican Republic


 
Ken Barth

Ken Barth

TVWBB Super Fan
This may be more of a question for Chris @Chris Allingham and/or his contacts in the US pork industry or the USDA. FYI otherwise.

There is a bit in the news about African Swine Fever in Haiti and DR.

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/new...a-09/asf-haiti


Given the recent influx of Haitian immigrants on our southern border, is there or should there be more concern that some of these immigrants could be carrying contaminated pork, could contaminate pigs in Central America and Mexico or other areas of the Caribbean and ultimately contaminate pigs in the US? The article states that safeguards are in place. Our recent history suggests we're not so good at preventing human infection, can we be better at preventing it in pigs in our food supply? Pork prices bear some watching.
 
Let's not discuss immigration, which invariably leads to politics which is a forbidden forum topic.

I don't have any pork industry or USDA contacts that can shed light on how swine fever in other countries affects pork production in the US.
 
From the article:

ASF is not a threat to human health, cannot be transmitted from pigs to humans and it is not a food safety issue.
 
Without belaboring this, the point I was trying to make and maybe didn’t do so well is this. The risk, I think, is economic. ASF went through Europe in the mid 2010’s. By 2018, it was in China and the Far East. China has the worlds largest swine stocks (55% of world stock in China) and is the world’s largest consumer of pork products. Pigs infected with ASF must be destroyed. If my math is correct, China had to destroy half their pig stocks as they were infected with ASF. Now, ASF has reached the Americas. As pitmasters, BBQ’rs, and grillers, we use a lot of pork products. If our pork supply is impacted, pork prices will rise.
 
No, I caught the last sentence of your post. Pork prices are already volatile given animal welfare laws kicking in for pigs, and there were predictions back in Spring 2021 of pork shortages and price increases this summer due to increased demand. I'm aware of BBQ joints that only serve pork ribs once a week due to availability. ASF has the potential to only make matters worse. Time to "eat mor chikin?" :)
 
DanHoo said:
how long will pork keep frozen in a manual defrost chest freezer?
Click to expand...
That depends greatly on how well it's sealed, how cold the freezer is, etc. I've used vacuum sealed pork that's 2+ years old from an auto-defrost freezer set to -10 F, seemed like it was frozen last week.
 
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