News
US-Philippine African swine fever project announced
The US and the Philippines are taking steps to address challenges related to African swine fever.
Bryan Humphries, CEO of NPPC, says the Philippines has had ongoing ASF outbreaks and was looking for ways to control the virus.
“To Capstone and start a program that allows us to work collaboratively with them through the University of Minnesota to help train folks, but also build capacity there in response to the disease,” he says. The project, titled “Capacity building in risk assessment to support safe international trade of US pork products in the Philippines, is a joint effort between the National Pork Producers Council, the USDA’s Foreign Ag Service and leaders from the Philippine Department of Ag and the Minnesota Department of Ag.
He tells Brownfield the program helps safeguard the US pork industry from the disease. “As our partnership here will highlight, it’s the building of the tools and the resources that they have available in country and the training programs that they use to help better control the disease,” he says. “All those things would be needed here, in the event of an African swine fever outbreak here in the United States.”
The program will include workshops for provincial officers and intense in-person training of fellows identified by representatives from the Philippine Department of Agriculture.
The project, in both the Philippines and Vietnam, is funded by the USDA’s FAS.
AUDIO: Bryan Humphries, NPPC
