African swine fever and falling meat prices are causing distress for many farmers. Agriculture Minister Klöckner wants to coordinate the fight against the disease with her counterparts in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The mood in agriculture is gloomy: the spread of African swine fever, too few slaughterhouses and falling meat prices are increasingly causing difficulties for many pig farmers in Germany. "Pig farming is currently in its biggest crisis in decades," says farmer president Joachim Rukwied. The 59-year-old names, among other things, failures in slaughter due to the corona pandemic and the spread of African swine fever as reasons for the unfortunate situation of pig farmers in Germany. Pork prices are in free fall. "It's dramatic, it's shameful," says Rukwied.
CDU Federal Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner announced in a speech that she wanted to meet with her counterparts from Poland and the Czech Republic as soon as possible to coordinate the fight against African swine fever (ASP). To this end, she had already telephoned the new Polish Minister of Agriculture and discussed "how we can optimize the wild boar barriers even more on both sides," says Klöckner via video link. "My goal is to get ASF-free again in Germany as quickly as possible," said the Federal Minister of Agriculture. She pointed out that there must be no positive result in a country for at least twelve months for it to be considered ASF-free.
In Germany, African swine fever has so far only been detected in Brandenburg. There is currently no vaccine against the disease. The animals usually die within a few days, but the disease is harmless to humans. In his keynote address, Rukwied also brings safety measures for free-range and free-range management of pigs into play. One has to discuss "whether not at least temporarily – similar to the topic when avian influenza breaks out, free-range husbandry should be in buildings," says the farmer president. There are companies where the security measures do not correspond to what is necessary. "The worst thing would be if we had the ASP in a domestic pig herd. I don't even want to make that up."
According to the German Farmers' Association, more than 90 percent of the nearly 300,000 agricultural businesses in Germany are voluntary members.
. (tagsToTranslate) Economy (t) African Swine Fever (t) Julia Klöckner (t) Agriculture (t) Ministry of Agriculture (t) Poland (t) Czech Republic (t) Agricultural Policy (t) German Farmers' Association (t) Brandenburg