Foot-and-mouth disease affects the livestock industry; firm efforts to block African swine fever and safeguard domestic pork supply

Taking on political risk or removing a shame - one can only choose one of the two. Chen Jizhong, minister of the Council of Agriculture, chose to stake political risk and still stop vaccinating for foot-and-mouth disease, so that Taiwan could return to the list of epidemic-free areas. Chen Jizhong said that before the vaccination stop in July last year, he had been thinking about whether it was really necessary to stop. If virus still remained in the environment, foot-and-mouth disease could break out again at any time after the vaccination stop, and that would be a major political risk; if vaccination did not stop, everyone could continue to coexist peacefully. In the end, there was only one reason for the final decision. "A virus remaining in the country for 20 years without being eliminated is a shame for the Council of Agriculture and for the livestock industry."

Stopping vaccination is not simple The Council of Agriculture only dared to do it after forming a task force

The foot-and-mouth disease virus has existed in Taiwan for more than 20 years. For a long time, domestic pig farms have given foot-and-mouth disease vaccines so that pigs develop antibodies against foot-and-mouth disease. Even though in 2003 the World Organisation for Animal Health OIE recognized it as a vaccinated epidemic-free area, this was still not a true epidemic-free area. On the road to stopping vaccination for foot-and-mouth disease, the Council of Agriculture had failed before. In 2006, a trial stop of foot-and-mouth disease vaccination was carried out in Penghu. In 2007, Taiwan, Kinmen, and Matsu also began trial stops. By 2009, 90% of pig farms were not vaccinating, but in February of the same year, outbreaks began to be reported. By the end of July, 7 cases had accumulated, and the vaccination-stop plan was declared terminated. From August, vaccination was fully resumed.

In an exclusive interview with "AgriMedia," Chen Jizhong said that in order to successfully stop vaccination and make Taiwan a truly foot-and-mouth disease epidemic-free area, "the Council of Agriculture made a lot of efforts to ensure every link was in place and that stopping vaccination would not cause another foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. There were several times before when vaccination was going to be stopped but it was not successful, precisely because preparations were not sufficient." Chen Jizhong said that for the decision to stop foot-and-mouth disease vaccination, "we had a task force, and only then did we dare to stop vaccination in July last year."

According to environmental monitoring data released in early May, experts and scholars all believed that successfully stopping vaccination was no problem. If by the end of June, random testing in meat markets, pig farms, and other environments found no positive cases, and wild boar monitoring also found no foot-and-mouth disease virus, then in July and August a report would be written as soon as possible to apply to the OIE for removal from the foot-and-mouth disease area list. Following the procedures, Chen Jizhong said, the OIE would declare Taiwan a foot-and-mouth disease epidemic-free area next year.

Even if it successfully becomes an epidemic-free area next year Domestic pork will still mainly meet domestic demand

However, after becoming a foot-and-mouth disease epidemic-free area, Taiwan's pork export path cannot immediately restart. Chen Jizhong said, "It is not African swine fever, but Taiwan has another kind of swine fever. Because of this reason, Taiwan's pork cannot be exported immediately, but through specific livestock farms and slaughterhouses, Taiwan's pork products can still be exported." Even so, Taiwan still has to import pork every year, with a gap of 5% to 10%. Domestic pork naturally gives priority to meeting domestic demand, especially now that China's African swine fever epidemic has put global pork supply and demand in a state of rapid change and adjustment.

Remember the painful lesson of foot-and-mouth disease Firm resolve to block African swine fever

In the exclusive interview, Chen Jizhong could not help recalling that his own family had also been a foot-and-mouth disease disaster household. His family raised breeding sows. In 1995 and 1996, his father had just borrowed 3 million yuan from the farmers' association to expand the scale of breeding, but in 1997 foot-and-mouth disease broke out. The price of live pigs instantly "cut down," and overnight no one wanted piglets at all. The pig farm could only end in pain. The loan interest rate at that time was "forgot whether it was 12 or 15," and selling the land was still not enough to repay it. After Chen Jizhong returned from studying abroad, he still had to help repay this loan. "You will know how huge the impact on farmers' property is when the government fails to do a good job in epidemic prevention."

When it was decided last year that foot-and-mouth disease vaccination would stop in July, China did not yet have an African swine fever epidemic, but as soon as August arrived, China's first African swine fever case broke out in Shenyang. Taiwan is so close to China and exchanges are frequent, putting enormous pressure on domestic epidemic prevention work. Pig farmers had to prevent the foot-and-mouth disease virus from making a comeback and also prevent the African swine fever virus from invading. Apart from strictly enforcing biosecurity controls, there was no other way.