Spain's huge pork industry seeks salvation from swine fever threat

Jordi Saltiveri gazes across his farmland, on which he keeps 8,000 pigs, and remembers the day late last year when the news emerged that African Swine Fever (ASF) had been detected in Spain.

"I felt sad, angry, impotent," he says. "Once it's known that a country is positive for ASF, other countries will stop importing its pork."

Saltiveri's farm, owned by his father and grandfather before him, is in an isolated spot in the province of Lleida, in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

An old Catalan independence flag hanging by its entrance flaps in the wind, and the sound of pigs grunting and squealing in the farm buildings can be heard in the distance.

The outbreak of the virus remains relatively contained and it has not reached this area. Even so, Saltiveri, who is president of the federation of farming cooperatives in Catalonia, and almost every other pork farmer in Spain, is feeling its impact.

"Each pig we sell for slaughter has lost about €30 [$35; £26] to €40 of its value compared to before the outbreak," he says. "I'm worried because we're suffering big losses."

ASF is highly contagious and lethal for pigs and wild boars, but it does not affect humans. Ground zero for this outbreak is Collserola Park, a nature area on the edge of Barcelona, and a couple of hours' drive from Saltiveri's farm, where the corpse of a wild boar infected by the virus was discovered in late November.

The authorities moved quickly to shut down the park, restricting access to the area, while searching for more infected corpses. The exact cause of the outbreak is still unclear, and an initial investigation has ruled out a possible leak from an animal research facility located near the first boar to be found infected.

However, the thousands of wild boar that roam the area, some of which have been known to enter the outskirts of Barcelona itself, have been identified as a key factor behind the spread of ASF.

"Being too permissive with wild animals has led to an overpopulation of rabbits, deer and wild boar," says Òscar Ordeig, the minister for agriculture, fisheries and food in the regional government of Catalonia.

Wild boar, he tells the BBC, have become a particular problem, causing "a huge increase in traffic accidents and transmission of diseases".

Ordeig estimates that the entire Catalonia region contains between 120,000 and 180,000 boar. The local government's aim is to cut that population by half, and 24,000 animals have been culled so far this year.

The rural police officers leading the cull are focusing in particular on a 6km (3.7 mile) radius surrounding the first cases, deemed high risk. A lower-risk zone with a 20km radius has also been delimited.

The culling is carried out using net traps, metal box traps and silenced firearms. Cameras and drones are used to monitor the traps and movement of the animals, whose bodies are all tested for ASF. By the end of March, 232 boars had tested positive.

Meanwhile, the authorities are ensuring that the movement of the boars is restricted by fences. Officers involved in these tasks disinfect their vehicles and shoes after patrolling high-risk areas.

Ordeig points to the "extreme biosecurity" which has long been in place in Spain and the efforts to control this outbreak.

"We have to use all the resources available to defend our industry, our economy, our farming sector and farmers," he says. "There is a lot at stake here."

Since eradicating its last ASF outbreak, three decades ago, Spain's pork industry has grown enormously, to become the biggest in Europe with a value of €25bn. But once a country has detected ASF, export markets immediately close.

Brazil, Japan, Mexico, South Africa and the US have stopped importing Spanish pork. Other countries, such as EU members, China and the UK, have taken a more localised approach, only banning pork that originates in the affected area of north-eastern Spain.

The drop in international demand has affected not just in the amount of pork Spain is exporting, but also its price, having a direct impact on farmers like Saltiveri.

Pork exports from the Catalonia region were down 17% in January compared to the previous year. The export restrictions and price drop mean that the Spanish pork industry as a whole has already lost more than €600m since the crisis began, according to Unión de Uniones, a farmers' organisation.

Once the disease is fully eliminated, a 12-month period must pass before a country can be deemed "clean" and have its export status fully restored.

In other countries, such as Germany, which has been struggling with ASF in recent years, the disease has already caused severe damage to the pork industry, contributing to a drop in production of approximately 25% and the closure of thousands of farms.

The Spanish authorities are looking instead to Belgium as an example to follow – that country successfully eliminated ASF 14 months after its first case was detected.

Saltiveri, who employs strict and longstanding mandatory biosecurity measures, is confident that his and other farms will remain uninfected.

However, some in the pork industry remain underwhelmed by Spain's efforts to contain the virus.

After wild boar tested positive outside the initial high-risk zone in February, Mercolleida, the Catalan agricultural market that acts as a reference for food prices across Spain, criticised the actions to counter the disease, warning that the killing of boar in the Barcelona area was too slow.

"Farmers across Spain are now paying the cost of ASF," its board members said in a statement. "Spain must not be allowed to turn into Germany."

Despite such concerns, domestic consumption is holding up. In Sants market in central Barcelona, just a few kilometres away from the ASF outbreak's ground zero, shoppers seemed reassured by the authorities' response.

"I fully trust the safety measures that have been taken with this, they have controlled it very well," says Lupe López, a woman who was buying pork. "I feel quite calm about it."

"Right now I feel calmer than before, because pork is subject to more controls, and that reassures me when it comes to buying," says another shopper, Nati Martínez. She says the outbreak of BSE, or mad cow disease, that affected beef in the 1990s was more worrying because it could affect humans.

José Rodríguez, a pork butcher who has a stall in the market, said that retail prices had remained steady since the crisis began. "Right now, sales aren't great, but that's not to do with swine fever, it's because of other factors," he says, pointing to the high cost of living.

But Spaniards' appreciation of pork, he added, is undimmed. "We eat the whole pig, from the head to the tail."