Ministry begins destruction of pigs with Swine Fever

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture on Saturday began destroying more than 200,000 pigs to contain the outbreak of the African Swine Fever (ASF) in the Greater Accra and the Central Regions.

In October this year, the Ministry banned the slaughtering, sale and movement of pigs in and out of the two regions following the outbreak of the disease, which initially killed about 700 pigs.

A source at the Ministry described the outbreak of the disease, concentrated in Tema and Ashaiman in the Greater Accra, and the Awutu Bawjiase area in the Central Region, " as a national disaster".

He said the 300,000 Dollars earmarked by the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organisation as compensation to the affected farmers as not being enough.

The source said that most farmers could not start another farm with the compensation promised since most are caring for their animals at a very high cost and can not recover their loss.

"It is a sad event watching your animals being killed at a go with the capital investment vanishing and yet destroying them is the only solution," a farmer said.

Farmers in the Volta Region said have complained that the ban on the movement of pig and pig products is adversely affecting their business.

"Although the disease has not been spotted here, the ban on the movement of pigs has come at a bad time for us. We have matured animals, which cannot be sold to "Domido"(fried pork) dealers especially from Accra.

"Feeding more than twenty pigs for more than a month as small scale farmer is a heart breaking affair," one farmer said.