New Zealand Pork chief executive Brent Kleiss believes the country should be concerned about Spain’s confirmed cases of African swine fever (ASF).
Spain has confirmed that two wild boars found dead near Barcelona tested positive for the virus.
Among other countries,the United Kingdom quickly moved to temporarily ban imports from the country.
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) was monitoring the situation in Spain and said New Zealand would not accept any pork from that region of the country.
Kleiss agreed that measures like a temporary ban must be put in place.
“I guess the big concern for me is that now, along with Spain, 43% of pork coming to New Zealand does come from countries with African swine fever, and these temporary bans don’t always stay, even when the ASF does.”
NZ Pork statistics showed Spain was the second-largest contributor to Aotearoa’s pork imports this year, with 7211 tonnes until September.
Germany was the highest contributor with 9256 metric tonnes, and the US was third with 6168 tonnes.
A total of 38,671 metric tonnes of pork had arrived in the country as of September.
Kleiss said the country should be taking other steps to stop the virus from spreading here.
“I’d like to see a good review of our settings around allowing imports from countries of things like African swine fever.
“I think that would be a good step.
“Then things we can do here, keeping an eye out for the signs and symptoms in our animals, changing some of the rules around waste food feeding, and what you can and can’t feed to pigs in New Zealand.
NZPork chief executive Brent Kleiss.
“That would be a likely course of entry for a disease like this and for others, like foot and mouth disease.
“Certainly, some greater traceability of where our backyard pigs are in New Zealand, because we don’t really have too much of a picture of that.”
Biosecurity New Zealand import and export standards director Lisa Winthrop said the country’s measures against swine fever had proven successful in the past.
“Those measures include no live pigs are imported into New Zealand, and personal consignments of pork from any country is not allowed.
“Unprocessed [fresh or frozen pork] can only be imported from ASF-free countries, zones or regions.
“Some commercial pork products can be imported into New Zealand, but only if they meet strict import conditions to ensure they are free from ASF, including undergoing a treatment that destroys the virus.”
Winthrop said Biosecurity NZ continually reviewed import conditions for pig products to ensure they were appropriate.
