[QUOTE=GeneChing;1318911]threads
Bacon!!!
swine flu[/QUOTE]
I noticed that price of bacon is really increasing lately due to American Swine Fever(ASF).
bacon bummer
The US has a silent pig pandemic on its doorstep once again
As America readies to protect its pork industry, the Dominican Republic has been accused of using an outbreak of African Swine Fever to wipe out smaller producers
The Dominican Republic has announced the slaughter of tens of thousands of pigs after detecting outbreaks of African Swine Fever in pig farms across the country. Photograph: Ricardo Rojas/Reuters
Milli Legrain
@mlegrain
Sun 17 Oct 2021 05.00 EDT
A pandemic is silently sweeping across the globe – and it is not Covid-19. Since African Swine Fever (ASF) was confirmed in the Americas more than two months ago, the deadly pig disease is now on six continents and on the doorstep of the US.
Samples taken in the Dominican Republic tested positive for ASF in July and in neighbouring Haiti in September.
The virus does not affect humans or meat quality, but is an almost certain death sentence for pigs. The US pork industry – worth $23bn (£17bn) a year – is in a panic, Latin America is on alert, and pork producers in the Dominican Republic and Haiti are haunted by memories of the US-funded eradication of their entire pork population when ASF last hit more than 40 years ago.
Rigoberto Echavarría, a Dominican pig farmer, is devastated by the loss of his entire herd in August after staff sent by the Ministry of Agriculture followed an initial government directive to kill all pigs on small farms in affected hotspots and those within a 5km radius of the outbreak. The slaughter happened without prior testing for the virus.
Local reports say at least 1,000 pigs were killed that month in the province of Santiago Rodríguez, where Echavarría lives. But another farmer thinks the killings go beyond 10,000.
Social media accounts show local people throwing stones at a government vehicle loaded with dead pigs protected by armed members of the military.
Some small pork producers banded together to prevent the teams from reaching their farms.
But for Echavarría, it was too late. His farm is in the north-west of the Dominican Republic, 70km from the border with Haiti, where some suspect the disease entered the island. But, like many in his province, he believes his 130 pigs were healthy, and questions whether larger farms are being targeted by the government programme in the same way. He asks: “Can the pigs of my rich friend not also get sick?”
Speaking to the Guardian, an official said 73,000 pigs have been killed out of a pig population estimated at 1.8 million. The size of the farms affected has not been made public, but the numbers suggest the average farm had only 25 pigs.
Dr Rafael Nuñez Mieses, director of animal health at the Ministry of Agriculture, attributes the destruction of small farmers’ herds without prior testing for the virus to an initial “lack of equipment”. The strategy later changed.
Initially there was a policy to eliminate the small producers in order to contain the illness
Dr Francisco Israel Brito, Dominican Federation of Pork Producers
A government veterinarian in the province of Santiago Rodríguez, who asked to speak anonymously, says: “If the testing equipment had arrived earlier, we would not have had to sacrifice so many pigs.” He adds: “This is an area of small farms.”
But an unpublished technical report obtained by the Guardian reveals that the directive to kill pigs on small farms without prior testing was part of a government plan to control ASF, backed by the International Regional Organization for Agricultural Health and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
The document says: “Within a radius of 5 to 10 km of each outbreak, following the guidelines outlined in the emergency plan, all back yard farms should be sacrificed (not the industrial ones), independently of whether they are free of infection.”
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A farmer observes the remains of pigs that died of ASF, as the Dominican Republic announced the slaughter of tens of thousands of animals after detecting outbreaks across the country. Photograph: Ricardo Rojas/Reuters
Dr Francisco Israel Brito, president of the Dominican Federation of Pork Producers, confirms this. “Initially there was a policy to eliminate the small producers in order to contain the illness,” he says. “But then it became clear that, even then, the larger farms couldn’t escape the virus since it was all over the country.
“And the government realised that it was going to be very costly, so they decided to focus on the hotspot areas instead.”
Farmers have been compensated for the killings at a market rate of 120 Dominican pesos/kg (US$ 2.13), but missteps from the Dominican government have not helped to ease farmers’ mistrust.
The international community has been on alert for ASF for years. The Dominican Republic hosted an international conference in Punta Cana in 2018 where ASF was on the agenda. Samples, which had been taken as early as April, were not tested for ASF until July, giving the virus plenty of time to spread.
The Dominican government was quick to point the finger at small farmers on the border in June. But an official report published later by the World Organisation for Animal Health says the country’s first outbreak was in April in the centre of the country, where the majority of industrial-scale pork farms are based.
In a recent report, the international NGO Grain claims the Dominican government is taking advantage of the pig pandemic to eliminate smaller farms, following a similar pattern to that which it reported in China as a result of the ASF variant that has been ravaging states in the former Soviet Union since 2007 and which spread to Asia in 2018.
A smallholder watches over her pigs. In the Dominican Republic many rural people keep pigs in their back yards for their own consumption. Photograph: Ricardo Rojas/Reuters
The Dominican government’s rhetoric has fed the narrative that smaller producers operate illegally and lack the hygiene and nutrition standards to keep the disease at bay.
In Latin America, traspatio – or back yard – pigs are traditionally reared a few at a time for self-consumption, tied to a pole at the back of a modest dwelling where they guzzle food scraps. In 1978, ASF allegedly reached the Dominican Republic via pork leftovers from a flight from Europe fed to a back yard pig outside the airport.
The Dominican government classifies all 28,000 small and medium farms with varying hygiene and nutrition standards as back yard farms. But the small and medium farmers the Guardian spoke to did not feed their pigs on food scraps or let them roam on landfill sites. And they were aware of disease transmission risks.
“Nobody works on this farm except me and one employee. Nobody else visits my farm,” says Echavarría.
Nuñez Mieses acknowledges that “not more than 100 farms” in the whole country meet biosecurity protocols “as described in the manual”, adding: “This disease is an opportunity for the pork industry to organise itself.”
Dr Francisco Israel Brito, president of Fedoporc, the Dominican federation of pork producers, confirms that the government was initially “protecting” the 400 or so industrial farms that produce 70% of all Dominican pork.
But he also acknowledges that, much like the coronavirus, ASF does not discriminate, saying: “It affects the most humble and the most powerful alike.”
Everyone hopes that a repeat of the 1979 US-sponsored eradication of pigs in the Dominican Republic won’t need to be repeated. Photograph: Ricardo Rojas/Reuters
The US recently announced $500m in funding to support activities related to combating ASF in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, but a US outbreak is not unthinkable. More than 2 million Dominicans live in the US and the Dominican Republic is a popular destination for American tourists. ASF travels well in cured meat in luggage as well as in uncooked pork scraps on boats and aeroplanes.
If the plan to contain the disease by focusing on small farmers fails in the Dominican Republic, then plan B, according to government sources who spoke to the Guardian, is to destroy the whole swine population, as in 1979, when a US-backed eradication took place, followed by one in Haiti in 1982. This would protect the US pork industry and generate a massive increase in the 27% of Dominican pork consumption that mainly comes from the US.
Paul G Rudenberg, a US veterinarian who was part of the USAID effort to introduce pigs from Iowa to Haiti in the mid 1980s, doubts an eradication effort would be politically viable today. He says: “It may have been necessary. But it wasn’t run in the manner that was conducive to the benefit of the small farmer. As a result, it wreaked social economic havoc on Haiti.”
A glimmer of hope lies in the recent development by the US of a potential candidate for a vaccine against ASF; 40 years later, it looks like Big Brother is again likely to call the shots.
As for the small and medium sized farmers in the Dominican Republic, more than anything, what they don’t want is for certain farmers to get preferential treatment due to their size or government contacts.
“As a pig farmer, I am never going to be in favour of eradication. But if they are going to slaughter some of them, they have to slaughter them all,” says Echavarría.
Pig pandemic…
The Bacon Law
California’s controversial animal cruelty ‘bacon law’ heading to the Supreme Court
Andrew Chamings
March 28, 2022
The ballot measure sought to “prevent animal cruelty by phasing out extreme methods of farm animal confinement, which also threaten the health and safety of California consumers and increase the risk of food-borne illness.”
judith wagner/Getty Images
The United States Supreme Court said Monday it will review a challenge to a California law that forces pork producers to end “extreme methods” of confining pigs.
California’s contentious ‘bacon law’, Proposition 12, sought to improve living conditions for farm animals in the state, with the restrictions largely targeting the production of pork and eggs.
Onlookers have characterized it as the strongest animal welfare law ever passed in the U.S. The ballot initiative — which was approved by nearly 63% of voters in 2018 — made metal enclosures that restrict pigs from turning around and battery cages that prevent hens from opening their wings illegal. The ballot measure sought to “prevent animal cruelty by phasing out extreme methods of farm animal confinement, which also threaten the health and safety of California consumers and increase the risk of food-borne illness.”
The law became effective on Jan 1, 2022, but the state is currently allowing the continued sale of pork processed under the old rules.
Meat industry trade groups warn that when the law is fully implemented it will fatten up supermarket bacon costs by 60% and lead to a meat shortage, while proponents say that’s merely Big Meat squealing at increased costs.
Two agricultural associations challenging the law — the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation — say almost no farms satisfy those conditions. In their appeal they say the “massive costs of complying” with the law will “fall almost exclusively on out-of-state farmers” and that the costs will be passed on to consumers nationwide.
The case is expected to be argued after the court begins its new term in October.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Written By Andrew Chamings
SFGATE Deputy Managing Editor Andrew Chamings was formerly Senior Editor at The Bold Italic and has written for The Atlantic, Vice and McSweeney’s.
Didn’t even know about this and I’m Californian…
Super Pigs
Highly Intelligent and Possibly Invincible Super Pigs Are Invading America
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
BY TIM NEWCOMB PUBLISHED: FEB 21, 2023
Getty Images
A special breed of hybrid super pigs from Canada have started to travel south into the northern United States.
The pigs pose a threat to native wildlife and may prove tough to eradicate.
The spread of the pigs has only increased in recent years.
A hybrid breed of super pigs—a mix of a domestic pig and a wild boar—is running wild in Canada. And now they have their sights set on the United States.
Originally crossbred to help farmed pigs grow larger and tolerate the cold temperatures of Canada, a drop in the market about two decades ago led some farmers to let their hybrid pigs run free. Now they’re running very free, according to Field and Stream. The super pigs are coming south, likely heading to Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Michigan.
The problem? The super pigs are proving hard to eradicate.
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“That they can survive in such a cold climate is one of the big surprises of this issue,” Ryan Brook, leader of the University of Saskatchewan’s Canadian Wild Pig Research Project, tells Field and Stream.
The cold-hardiness of the hybrid pigs means they survive well. That means other native species don’t. Brook elaborates:
“Wild hogs feed on anything. They gobble up tons and tons of goslings and ducklings in the spring. They can take down a whitetail deer, even an adult. Originally, it was like ‘wow, this is something we can hunt.’ But it’s become clear that they’re threatening our whitetail deer, elk, and especially, waterfowl. Not to mention the crop damage. The downsides outweigh any benefit wild hogs may have as a huntable species.”
The super pigs have already traversed across the international border, dipping into at least North Dakota. So, expect an even greater occurrence as the hybrid population only grows. Like on public transit, if you see something, say something. The Squeal on Pigs website makes that even easier.
The super pigs have become adept at fending off recreational hunters, sometimes with entire sounders (the term for a group of pigs, generally led by mature sows) turning nocturnal to avoid the hunting. Other times the sounders will disperse, making them harder to locate, or change their patterns and retreat to forests or wetlands.
The best strategy at reigning in the super pigs has been employing the Judas Pig concept, which straps a GPS collar onto a pig to lead game officials to other pigs. Deception may be our only hope.
TIM NEWCOMB
Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.
The oddest thing about this story is that it’s published in Popular Mechanics
Pork flavoered coffee for Chinese New Year
By Jessie Yeung and Hassan Tayier, CNN
3 minute read
Published 2:38 AM EST, Tue February 20, 2024
Hong Kong
CNN
—
Who doesn’t like a little braised pork with their coffee?
Starbucks (SBUX) is betting on that unusual combination with a new drink released in China to mark the Lunar New Year. Dubbed the “Abundant Year Savory Latte,” the brand describes it as having an “interesting” flavor.
The drink combines Dongpo Braised Pork Flavor Sauce with espresso and steamed milk, with extra pork sauce and pork breast meat for garnish, according to the Starbucks delivery app.
The drink is priced at 68 yuan ($9.45), according to the app.
Photos of the drink, posted on Chinese social media platform Weibo by the Shanghai Starbucks Reserve Roastery, show a drizzle of dark red sauce atop the latte foam — with a square slice of pork on a skewer resting on the mug rim.
“Eating meat means prosperity in the coming year,” the roastery wrote on Weibo on February 5, days before the Lunar New Year began.
It added that the drink brings “traditional New Year customs into coffee,” and creates “unexpected savory and sweet flavors.” The latte is available at Starbucks Reserve stores across the country.
The drinks cost about $9.45. Courtesy Starbucks
Lunar New Year is one of the biggest annual holidays in Asia. People across China travel back home during this period to celebrate with their families. Government data shows a total of 474 million trips were made within the mainland during this year’s travel season.
And while the foods served at New Year feasts vary by region, braised pork makes a frequent appearance. Named after the ancient poet, painter and statesman Su Dongpo, Dongpo rou is a dish made from braised pork belly, rock sugar, soy sauce, yellow wine and other seasonings.
The result is richly flavored and extremely tender cuts of pork that can easily be pried apart with chopsticks.
China is the biggest branded coffee shop market in the world, according to a report released in December by World Coffee Portal, having overtaken the United States last year.
Starbucks opened 785 outlets in the country in 2023, it said. China has long been one of the most important growth drivers for Starbucks, serving as its second biggest market worldwide and top overseas market.
But it’s got stiff competition, including from Luckin Coffee. The Chinese startup is the country’s biggest coffee chain with over 13,000 outlets, and offers drinks at a much lower price point than its American competitor.
The Starbucks pork latte has quickly gained traction on Chinese social media, with the topic viewed more than 476,000 times on Weibo by the time of publishing. Some users expressed curiosity, but others were skeptical, pointing to the high price point and questioning why they would drink the latte instead of eating real braised pork.
“For 67 yuan, I could eat a plate of braised pork then go to Luckin and drink two lattes,” one Weibo user wrote.
Another user quipped: “I would allow both (pork and coffee) to exist in my stomach at the same time, but not in my mouth at the same time.”
Jiupai News, a site affiliated with the state-run Changjiang Daily, reported that the drink had already sold out at one store in Wuhan, with customers saying the flavor was “unique” with a dense, smooth mouthfeel.
Starbucks also released other new flavors across China with a holiday theme in February, according to the Shanghai Reserve Roastery’s Weibo account, including a jujube macchiato inspired by new year’s rice cakes and an almond tofu macchiato.
By Kasia Pawlowska, Local EditorAug 4, 2025 FILE: A wild pig moves through a field in California.
[IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“height”:“640”,“width”:“960”,“src”:“https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/53/72/43/28289246/3/ratio3x2_960.webp”}[/IMG2]
Don Henderson/Getty Images
A wildlife trapper in Monterey County made an unexpected discovery after capturing a series of wild pigs in March of this year. While processing the animals, the trapper found several with blue-tinged muscles and fat tissues. The bizarre discoloration is a result of exposure to diphacinone, an anticoagulant rodenticide that is often dyed to identify it as a poison, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
In an email to SFGATE, Fish and Wildlife pesticide investigations coordinator Ryan Bourbour said that the trapper observed the wild pigs eating directly from rodenticide bait stations. The scope of the contamination appears extensive across the southern part of Monterey County and along the Salinas River, according to KSBW-TV.
Wild pigs are adaptable hybrid creatures. Part domesticated pig, part wild boar, they can weigh upward of 200 pounds and now live in 56 out of 58 counties across the state. SFGATE previously reported on their increasingly aggressive behavior, including charging at a hiker. FILE: Wild pigs forage for food at California’s Lake San Antonio on June 22, 2021.
Vince Bruzzone, owner of Full Boar Trapping & Wildlife Control, is familiar with the oddity. “I have heard of this happening in agricultural ‘heavy’ areas like Salinas and other parts of the Central Coast,” he told SFGATE in an email. Bruzzone’s company was recently contracted by the Santa Clara Open Space Authority to help manage its wild pig population over the next three years for $243,000. He said he takes proactive measures because of this contamination issue. “I do make a point to tell those I donate carcasses to that if they ever were to come across blue meat from one of my pigs to dispose of it at a landfill (rather than dumping it) and bring me the bill so that it doesn’t enter the food chain,” he said.
Wild pigs in the Monterey County area were exposed to pesticide bait containing the anticoagulant rodenticide diphacinone. Rodenticide baits often contain dye to identify them as poison.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife
The situation reveals a paradox: While California banned diphacinone for most uses in January 2024, agricultural operations have exemptions due to their pest control needs. That loophole has broad ecologic implications. A 2018 statewide study found rodenticide residues in 8.3% of wild pig tissue samples — and in an alarming 83% of bear samples — mainly in animals frequenting agricultural zones. Wildlife officials warn that this contamination can ripple through the food chain, since wildlife can be inadvertently consuming poisoned prey.
After confirming the presence of diphacinone in the liver and stomach contents of wild pigs with blue tissues, Fish and Wildlife’s Wildlife Health Laboratory is advising hunters to not consume meat from any animals showing discoloration. Visible signs aren’t always reliable, however. “As demonstrated by findings of exposure in nongame animals, the discoloration is not always present and is not a reliable indicator of AR [anticoagulant rodenticide] residues in meat,” the 2018 study said.
Kasia Pawlowska
LOCAL EDITOR
Kasia Pawlowska is an award-winning writer and SFGATE’s local editor. She lives in San Francisco’s Sunset District with her husband and dog. Send her an email at kasia.pawlowska@sfgate.com.
Blue bacon would probably sell well…
Florida Man Hospitalized With Rare Infection After Eating Feral Pig Meat
Maybe don’t do that.
By Luis Prada
March 20, 2025, 4:15pm [IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://www.vice.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/florida-man-hospitalized-with-rare-infection-after-eating-feral-pig-meat.jpg?w=1024”}[/IMG2] PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES Share:
If you kill a feral pig, you probably shouldn’t eat it. This life lesson comes to us from yet another CDC case study. These studies occasionally veer into the outlandish, like the one about a guy who got a tick-related infection from a kidney transplant. And now, there’s a Florida man whose heart implant became infected after he ate some feral pig meat.
A pastor in his 70s developed a chronic illness that was eventually linked to a bacteria transmitted by pigs. Assuming the illness stemmed from his history of heart failure that was so severe that he needed to wear a cardiac defibrillator, he eventually saw a doctor who was mystified by his patient’s worsening infection even after receiving antibiotic treatments. VIDEOS BY VICE
The poor guy was in and out of the hospital as doctors struggled to figure out what was going on. Eventually, doctors suspected that it had something to do with the cardiac defibrillator implanted in his chest to maintain a steady heartbeat.
The doctors theorized that maybe the infection couldn’t be eliminated no matter what kind of antibiotic treatment he received because the infection wasn’t so much inside of his body as it was trapped inside of his implant.
With no other options, they cut open his chest and removed the implant. As they suspected, they found traces of an infection called B. suis, a zoonotic disease that spreads through direct animal contact or the consumption of contaminated animal products.
The guy swore up and down that, even though he lived on a farm, he had no direct contact with any animals or animal products that are known to be harbingers of B. suis. Except, oops, wait, totally forgot about that time a hunter friend gave him a few slabs of feral pig meat.
Feral pigs happen to be one of the more common ways B. suis is transmitted, along with drinking raw milk.
The doctors were able to safely remove the defibrillator implant and he was finally rid of the infection after a standard round of antibiotics. A few months later, he had a new implant installed, one that wasn’t tainted by a rare feral pig infection.
a two-fer today!