Thomas Schröder, President of the German Animal Welfare Federation, comments on today's confirmed outbreak of African swine fever on a farm with around 2000 affected animals in Emsbüren, Emsland:
'The announcement by Lower Saxony's Agriculture Minister Barbara Otte-Kinast to initially refrain from preventive culling outside the affected farm may show a sense of proportion. However, the suffering of the animals killed is just as distressing as the fact that the disease was able to be introduced despite warnings that had long been known. Despite the measures announced, there is still cause for great concern, especially as almost 200,000 pigs are kept in the restricted zone alone. In addition, the farm apparently has supply relationships that increase the risk of the disease spreading. We hope that we are not witnessing the beginning of an animal tragedy in the pig stronghold of Lower Saxony and beyond.
We are counting on an absolute, wide-ranging “standstill” being established and strictly controlled. Nobody is allowed to enter or leave the farm. This must apply to all animal transports, all supplier relationships and also to the farmers, their families and employees until the situation is under control. Priority must now be given to protecting the animals. In addition, we are calling for intensive research into the causes in order to identify possible routes of spread and to be able to adopt further preventive measures. This also includes clarifying the extent to which external persons such as hunters, vets or feed suppliers had contact with the affected farm.
Overall, such cases of epidemics provide further evidence of how necessary it is to change the system away from intensive farming. The more animals are kept in a confined space, the less successful it is to reduce cases of disease to a minimum and limit them as closely as possible to the region. The coalition government at federal level is called upon to quickly tackle the revision of the Building Code agreed in the coalition agreement and to restructure livestock farming with a view to animal welfare.
