The event focused on pork market analysis, effective and safe approaches to animal feeding, management of pig by-products, and strategies to combat pig viral diseases in Ukraine.
Particular attention was paid to the problem of African swine fever (ASF). Igor Lotskin, Director of the Department of Food Safety and Consumer Protection of the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, stressed that the fight against ASF is increasingly falling on the shoulders of veterinarians, although effective counteraction requires comprehensive cooperation between all relevant authorities, businesses and NGOs.
Over the past ten years, Ukraine has suffered significant economic losses due to the ASF epidemic, which also negatively affects the investment attractiveness of the industry and its export potential. The State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection and the Ministry of Agrarian Policy are actively working to develop mechanisms for zoning and compensation for pig carcasses, as well as to improve the guidelines for the prevention and elimination of ASF.
The main goal is to create effective cooperation between pig market participants and veterinarians, which will help maintain epizootic well-being in times of war.
To this end, as well as to determine the level of awareness of key stakeholders about ASF, prevention and response to this disease, the project ‘Keeping Animals Healthy in Ukraine’, implemented by the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Association of Ukrainian Pig Breeders (AUP), interviewed 550 respondents, including specialists from industrial pig farms, meat processing plants and hunting grounds; owners of households that raise pigs; pork producers who sell meat from backyard slaughtered animals on agri-food markets; heads of the main regional departments of the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection and state laboratories. Its results showed the need to further inform pork producers, in particular in the private household sector, about the fight against ASF and compliance with the basics of biosafety in pig production. Therefore, these issues are being actively addressed by the members of the AMP, the competent authority and leading industry experts.
The Association of Ukrainian Pig Breeders is a non-profit, voluntary organisation founded by domestic pork producers. The main goals of the association are to represent and protect the rights and interests of the association's farms, promote the development and implementation of new technologies for efficient pork production, expand sales markets, and protect the domestic market.
