The hog industry is losing P1 billion a month due to African swine fever, the Department of Agriculture said on Friday.
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“There are opportunity losses for the hog industry estimated at about P1 billion a month,” department spokesman Noel Reyes said.
The Philippines is the world’s largest consumer of pork and the seventh biggest importer.
Since September, over 60,000 pigs died of the disease or were culled because of it, representing less than 1 percent of the country’s 12.7-million pigs as of July.
Prices of pork and other processed pork products have gone down due to the ASF scare, after pigs in Luzon and parts of Metro Manila tested positive for the virus.
“We strongly appeal to small backyard hog raisers not to sell their ASF-infected pigs to traders, and for traders not to sell infected hogs, and pork and processed products so as not to spread the ASF virus to other areas,” Agriculture Secretary William Dar said.
He said some homemade processed pork products, such as tocino, hotdogs and longganiza, recently tested positive for ASF.
ASF causes hemorrhagic fever in pigs that almost always ends in death, but cannot be transmitted to humans and other animals.
The Palace has ordered all government agencies to coordinate and adopt policies to control the spread of ASF, after some processed meat tested positive for the virus.
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea has also directed all concerned government offices to provide assistance, alternative livelihood and skills training to those affected by ASF, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said Thursday.
The order came amid the confirmation from the Department of Agriculture that authorities caught a passenger at Mindoro port carrying tocino, hotdog, and other meat products from Central Luzon tainted with ASF.
The Philippine Association of Meat Processors previously told lawmakers that the ASF virus can be killed after cooking but international experts noted that there have been many cases abroad that challenge this.
An outbreak of the virus in parts of Rizal and Bulacan provinces has prompted authorities to cull around 7,000 hogs.
Pork accounts for 60 percent of meat consumption in the Philippines, the world’s 8th biggest pork producer by volume, with its swine industry estimated at P260 billion, the Department of Agriculture earlier said.
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