Collective action on African swine fever

Mark Haighton, Pork Sector Director, summarises two productive days of industry discussion, planning and collective action on African swine fever (ASF).

During the first week of March, we brought together producers, processors, vets, trade bodies, retailers and policy colleagues for four focused ASF workshops, exploring preparedness, response and recovery across the pork supply chain.

AHDB and the industry as a whole have done a lot of work over the last two years to prepare for a potential ASF outbreak, and the time has come to look forward to what work still needs to be done. 

• ASF prevention, semen supply and rare breed conservation
• Managing pigs on farm during an ASF outbreak
• Managing processing during an ASF outbreak
• Returning to trade following an ASF outbreak

The workshops presented an opportunity to both reflect and identify gaps still remaining, prioritise them, start to look at how they might be resolved and, crucially, consider who is best placed to lead the work. 

Miranda Poulson, Senior Animal Health and Welfare Scientist, was the technical lead for the workshops. She said:

“There was a huge variety of expertise in the room across the two days, and we have come away with lots of valuable and practical suggestions.

“While we have made great progress over the last couple of years, it is clear that there is a lot still to do and we hope these workshops will give the industry clear direction as we continue to prepare.”

Several key themes emerged across the workshops. Some, like the need for frequent and clear communication to a wide variety of stakeholders including consumers, are common to all stages of an outbreak and are a shared responsibility. Responsibility for other priorities lies clearly with specific stakeholders.

For example, processors and the Food Standards Agency must work together on the pre-designation of as many slaughterhouses and other processing facilities as possible as soon as possible.

Vets and producers must continue to work together to create contingency plans for each unit they work with. 

We are expecting that the updated legislation will be published in the coming months, and it will be essential to quickly identify where it differs from the current legislation.

We hope that this will enable the creation of clear guidance and standard operating procedures for everything from applying for a movement licence to cleansing and disinfection.

This was another clear ask from the stakeholders in the room.

Key to all the work we will need to undertake are strong relationships between all stakeholders along the supply chain, from producers to retailers.

The workshops were a great opportunity to get everyone working together in the same room and create a sense of shared responsibility for the greater good of the sector.

While we convened and facilitated the workshops, we know that AHDB alone will not be able to undertake all the suggested work, and the workshops were not an exercise in creating a to-do list for ourselve.

We now plan to turn the discussion, outputs and ideas into a single report, clearly identifying where the industry feels the gaps are, how they can be solved and who should own the work.

In the next three to six months, that will be transformed into a clear work plan for the coming years, to be reviewed regularly as priorities reorganise themselves and new ones arise.

We will play our part and we expect that others will play theirs as we continue to plan and prepare together.