Safeguarding Ontario’s Pork Industry: How Alliance Experts Are Preparing for African Swine Fever

African Swine Fever (ASF) continues to devastate pig farms across Europe and Asia. Given the Ontario pork industry’s deep ties to global trade, experts from the University of Guelph and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness are collaborating to understand the potential economic impacts for the pork industry if the disease were to reach Canada.

With support from the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance, Nuño-Ledesma and his team build economic models of commodities critical to the provincial agri-food system. These models allow them to answer “what if” questions to anticipate the potential economic effects of various threats, including biosecurity risks like ASF, to guide preparedness efforts.

In the case of ASF and the pork supply chain, their work helps government policymakers, the swine industry and the public understand how the disease could impact everything from pig prices to processing capacity to workforce availability, allowing them to plan for changes in production, economic and funding programs, and response planning efforts.

Their modelling of an ASF outbreak in a central production region of Ontario projects severe consequences, primarily driven by the expected 18-month closure of international borders to Canadian exports. 

In Ontario, hog prices would drop between 70 and 90 per cent in the immediate-term and remain significantly below baseline for the two-year modelled period.

To address the resulting excess supply in the domestic market, the model incorporates healthy swine depopulation (euthanization) as a necessary intervention. The result would be an estimated 21.9 million animals depopulated over two years, with the majority taking place during the first year.

The forecasted economic losses from these market disruptions are substantial. The modelled scenario projects the total impact on the Canadian pork industry as a $3.5-billion decrease in net economic value to producers and consumers once pricing, production and market adjustments are taken into account.

The researchers’ modelling also explores ways to mitigate the damage. Nuño-Ledesma and Biden suggest that improving trade between provinces, reducing breeding stock and the number of litters, certifying disease-free areas through zoning, and working to increase consumer demand could decrease the associated impacts.

OMAFA Lead Veterinarian Dr. Christa Arsenault has been involved in ASF planning since 2019. She says that Canada's ASF response plan involves federal and provincial governments, academia, private practicing veterinarians and the swine industry, working together to respond to the disease, provide value chain support and restore economic stability.

Effective planning decreases the likelihood that some of the severe impacts predicted by the U of G researchers would occur.  

In Ontario, producer organization Ontario Pork, U of G, and OMAFA are working together with veterinarians to ensure that if ASF arrives, the province is ready. 

Part of that readiness is a proactive surveillance program, already in place, with the main objectives to detect the disease early and to aid in supporting Canada’s freedom from ASF for international trade.

The surveillance program is called CanSpotASF, and the University of Guelph’s Animal Health Laboratory (AHL) is the only Ontario-based laboratory certified for ASF testing.

AHL actively prepares for emergencies by conducting simulation exercises and by ensuring the lab has the expertise and equipment to process a high volume of tests if an outbreak were to occur.