What is the chilean pork industry doing in terms of biosecurity issues?

“One of the main activities is to constantly strengthen the role that each of us plays in complying with biosecurity measures, mainly via training programs, awareness campaigns, and monitoring. For example, this year we created the slogan “Biosafety is everyone’s responsibility,” so that not only our farm staff takes care of biosafety, but for all of us here in Agrosuper to understand that we must protect our animals from diseases and therefore avoid exposing them to unnecessary biosafety risks,” said Gonzalo Mena, Health Assistant Manager at Agrosuper.

Agrícola Coexca SA supports the actions Chile is undertaking in the field of biosecurity to prevent the entry of diseases such as the African swine fever. “In this sense, a number of safeguards have been implemented in all the farms managed by the company to strengthen biosecurity measures. These rules are applied regularly and rigorously at every farm every day. We fully support the actions taken by the State of Chile via the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG) and the Pork Producers Trade Association (ASPROCER) to prevent diseases that could affect our animals,” said Cristián Catalán, Technical Manager at Agrícola Coexca SA.

On the other hand, Elizabeth Ellmen, Quality Control and Environment Manager at Maxagro, highlighted that the adoption of strict control measures, new technologies, and a preventive culture is the formula followed by Maxagro to guarantee biosafety in all its facilities . “This is not done just to avoid the entry of diseases that put our company’s production and the Chilean pork industry at risk, but also to protect animal welfare, which is one our company’s main commitments”.

Eduardo Luchsinger, Agricultural Administration Manager at AASA, listed some of the measures implemented by the company: Visitors from ASF(+) countries are not allowed and eating pork and its byproducts inside the company is forbidden. The staff is also undergoing an education and awareness process (executives from the group’s companies, supervisors, etc.) regarding ASF and protection of entry barriers (disinfection arches, shoe removal, showers, disinfection chambers, slaughterhouse truck washing centers, etc.), as well as pig pens.

“We follow the BioREP program, we buy supplies from ASF(+) countries within 100 days of production to its delivery at AASA. We have tried to reduce supplies purchased from these countries and replace them with ASF(-) ones,” Luchsinger pointed out.