Agriculture Secretary William Dar. Photo by Ernie Esconde
SAMAL, Bataan – Agriculture Secretary William Dar on Friday said the African swine fever (ASF) is still a menace, “a big problem” but that they are confronting it.
“It is a global pandemic just like the coronavirus disease pandemic. There is no vaccine for ASF up until today. I hope that by the middle of this year, there will be indications whether or not these vaccines are effective or not,” the secretary said.
Dar explained that like in the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccines will be necessary to eradicate ASF in our country and also in other countries.
“So, we are hurting but of course we have to break this. As I have said, we don’t retreat but move forward every step of the way against African swine fever,” he said.
According to Dar, in one more year with the vaccine in place and with repopulation, the country will be back to where before it was hit by ASF.
The secretary was here to witness the signing of a memorandum of agreement between the Land Bank of the Philippines and Charoen Pokphand Foods Philippine Corp. to support hog, poultry and aqua raisers.
He described the bio-security employed by the Thai company that has a feed plant in Samal, as “the best ever for the swine industry.” The state-of-the-art bio-secured farms have enabled the firm to be resilient to the ASF.
“This is the realization of our shared mission to strengthen and enhance the much-needed support for our local swine and poultry industry and our fishery and aquaculture industry, especially in trying times like this,” Dar said of the MOA.
