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Vet says Secure Pork Supply Plans lagging for ASF

A veterinarian who has been in China to help with the African Swine Fever outbreak says not enough U.S. producers or states have Secure Pork Supply Plans ready in the event of an outbreak here.

Dr. Clayton Johnson with Carthage Veterinary Services in Carthage, Illinois, says they’ve been working to help Chinese producers clean up and repopulate, “We’ve seen the devil (ASF) firsthand, unfortunately.”

He says the Secure Pork Supply plan is critical for U.S. producers getting BACK to business if African Swine Fever hits, “You need as basic of things as feed and the ability to move pigs, all right?  And that Secure Pork Plan is going to help all the different folks involved get comfortable that YOUR site can be bio-secure, that your site can be trusted to be involved in normal commerce without being a risk to spread it everywhere.”

Johnson is working with the state of Kansas which he says is actively approving Secure Pork Supply Plans. Other states, like Missouri, are moving toward that but he says still others have done nothing.

Clayton Johnson was a presenter at the Missouri Pork Association’s 2020 Missouri Pork Expo in Columbia, Missouri.