Farmscape for January 21, 2026

The Associate Director of the Swine Health Information Center says new outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease and Pseudorabies in Europe underscore the need for continued vigilance in North America.
As part of its January eNewsletter the Swine Health Information Center has released its monthly domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports.
SHIC Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton says globally Foot and Mouth Disease and African Swine Fever have continued to spread.

Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Center:
Foot and Mouth Disease was seen for the first time in Cypress since 2008.
In South Africa there's been increased cases identified for Foot and Mouth Disease in the month of December with an additional 165 cases identified in December alone.
In Spain African Swine Fever still is present and being identified in wild boar but there's been no confirmed link to identify where the virus originated.
The ASF outbreak has resulted in significant economic losses to producers and threatens the profitability of pork production in Spain.
Estimated losses are around 1.2 billion because of the shutdown of pork exports in about one third of Spain's pork production.
Other expenses that have been noted are worker layoffs which also add to the losses that producers are experiencing.
This also impacts global pork production because other countries that are importing products are no long able to do this so pig prices have dropped as well as purchases.
In Hungary it was noted that Pseudorabies virus was identified and that was the first case since 2021.

Dr. Becton suggests this signals the need for continued vigilance and focusing on reducing risks, such as down time if farm staff are travelling to a different country and then returning to the U.S. and not wearing clothing and footwear that they wore overseas or bringing food products from overseas onto farms.
SHIC's domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports can be accessed at swinehealth.org.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers