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NPPC president-elect confident U.S. can keep African swine fever out

The president-elect of the National Pork Producers Council is confident the U.S. can prevent the introduction of African swine fever.

Wisconsin pork producer A.V. Roth points to another foreign animal disease that’s been kept at bay by the Department of Agriculture for nearly a century.

“USDA has kept out Foot and Mouth for the past 90 years, so I’m very confident.”

But he tells Brownfield a career in farming has taught him nothing is certain.

To that end, Roth has gone to great lengths to protect his herd.

“The farm is shower in, shower out. If you come into the farm, you have to be away from pigs for 72 hours. There’s a sign-in log (because) I track everybody coming in and out.”

He says contaminated feed is another threat.

“I get my feed from (a local mill) and work with a (local nutrition supplier) checking where the minerals come from, looking at down times. Just trying to do the best I can to make sure that we don’t get (ASF) here.”

NPPC decided to cancel this year’s World Pork Expo because of the African swine fever outbreak in Asia.  Calling it a tough decision, Roth says it was the right thing to do because of the remote chance the virus could be introduced during the event.