This is not the best of summers for Romania. Capricious weather,
\nheavy rain, floods that left in their wake victims and material damage, acute
\npolitical and social tensions, economic uncertainty – the general picture has
\nlittle to do with the radiance of a summer postcard. On top of it all, the
\nAfrican swine fever virus continues to spread around the country, with hotbeds
\nnow amounting to around 450. The situation is so serious that the Chamber of
\nDeputies’ agriculture committee held an informal meeting to discuss it. <\/p>\n
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The human body is immune to the virus. However, once the virus
\ninfects an animal, it can kill all the other animals at a farm because it is
\nhighly contagious and there is no treatment or vaccine for it, experts say. It
\nappears that wild boars play the main role in the transmission of the virus. An
\nexample is Tulcea county, in the south-east, and which also includes the Danube
\nDelta, the home of a sizeable wild boar population. The virus has already been
\nconfirmed at two large pig farms in this county, with one of them having to
\ncull about two thirds of its 45,000 pigs. <\/p>\n
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The consequences are devastating for pig farmers. Adrian Iorgulescu,
\nwho is a member of a pig farmers’ association, explains:<\/p>\n
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In all the counties affected, the approximate number of sows in
\nauthorised professional farms exceeds 50,000, out of a total of 140,000 in the
\nwhole of Romania. Because we are unable to provide young pigs for fattening, we
\nhave to prepare for slaughtering them and apply for compensation from the authorities.
\nThere is no other option, there’s no exception that would allow us to send our
\npiglets to the fattening farms located in other counties, and this involves roughly
\n1.5 million piglets a year for 50,000 sows. This amounts to almost half of the
\nyoung pigs produced in Romania. The situation is of national importance right
\nnow.<\/p>\n
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Farmers also say that damages caused by the spread of the African
\nswine fever virus in Romania amount to hundreds of millions of euros. On a trip
\nto Brussels last week, Romania’s agriculture minister Petre Daea already
\nrequested funds from the European Commission to compensate for losses caused by
\nthe closure of pork production and the drop in prices in the affected areas.
\nThe aid also covers costs related to disinfection, the destruction of fodder
\nand the disposal of carcasses, according to the agriculture minister.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The African swine fever virus continues to spread in Romania and cause huge losses to farmers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":78340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[32374,19347],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-78396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-african-swine-fever","tag-romania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n