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German ASF cases provide insight for U.S.

A livestock economist says Germany is a good example of what an African Swine Fever Outbreak might look like in the U.S.

The University of Missouri’s Scott Brown tells Brownfield ASF in Germany’s wild hog herd locked them out of export markets.

“If we were to talk about ASF here, I would be surprised if it didn’t start in the wild herd that we have here in the U.S.,” he said. “Germany’s kind of gone through this ‘can we still have open markets for our domestic production since it’s not infected. It could be useful to us.”

He said ASF in wild herds, like in Germany, removes trade demand while not removing pork supplies. Brown says that scenario in the U.S. would cause a major blow to pork prices.

“You talk about restricting U.S. pork exports, that’s a scenario that you probably don’t want to talk about in terms of just what that means for prices because they’ll move considerably lower as that product backs up into U.S. channels,” Brown said.

But Brown said since ASF does not affect people, domestic pork consumption likely won’t take a hit.