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By Chen Wen-ching 陳文卿
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A pig carcass that was recently found on a beach in Kinmen County tested positive for African swine fever (ASF), and disease control and prevention agencies are once again finding themselves strained.
The ASF Central Emergency Operation Center said it incinerated the pig carcass and buried its ashes onsite, after local animal disease control personnel had collected samples. The surrounding area was thoroughly disinfected and all pig farms within a 10km radius were inspected, as per protocol.
The Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday last week announced shipments of pork and pork products from Kinmen County would be suspended, effective immediately. The suspension ends today.
ASF first emerged in 1921 and has since been found in regions around the world, first reaching Europe in the 1960s, with an outbreak in China occurring in 2018.
It has caused significant problems wherever it has been found, striking fear in global health authorities and the agriculture industry. The ministry has not been the only gatekeeper on the front line.
The Customs Administration has taken a more stringent approach in inspecting meat products carried by travelers arriving by plane to prevent the virus from entering Taiwan.
Environmental agencies have also significantly reformed policies on food waste recycling, strictly regulating pig farming by mandating high-temperature cooking to prevent ASF-contaminated pork from reaching farms.
Through the close cooperation of agricultural and environmental agencies, domestic pig farms have remained free of ASF outbreaks.
The nation’s ASF prevention achievements have been recognized by the World Organisation for Animal Health, outperforming Southeast Asian nations and Japan. However, that success has come at a significant cost.
Before the ASF epidemic, about 60 percent of domestic food waste was recycled for pig farming. That not only allowed pig farms to efficiently process mixed food waste, but also, more importantly, substantially reduced the cost of imported feed. The practice offered environmental benefits, resource recycling and economic efficiency. Biomass energy utilization and compost fermentation are effective methods to recycle food waste. However, they are relatively more expensive and have more limited processing capacities.
The ASF outbreak in China is the reason these changes had to be made. For a long time, the large amount of garbage drifting from China, which requires enormous human and material resources to get rid of, has been a major headache for Kinmen’s environmental agencies. Discarding ASF-infected pig carcasses into the sea, allowing them to drift to Kinmen, is an egregious act that must be strongly condemned.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) said she would be willing to engage in direct dialogue with China if it were to attack Kinmen.
Regardless of whether such an attack would happen, Chen should consider trying her hand at talking to China about taking care of its own garbage problem and see if she could persuade the Chinese government to stop their farmers from throwing pig carcasses into the sea, as it could endanger Kinmen.
Achieving that goal alone would do infinite good. Perhaps she could try to stop garbage from drifting to Taiwan before persuading China not to attack Kinmen by force.
Chen Wen-ching works in environmental services.
Translated by Fion Khan
