Question Period Note: AFRICAN SWINE FEVER

Q1 – What measures has the Government of Canada already put in place to address the threat that the global spread of African swine fever poses to Canada’s swine industry? Q2 – (AAFC) How does the launch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s African Swine Fever Industry Preparedness Program help to mitigate the risks and impacts of the disease? Q3 – How has the CFIA tested or validated its preparedness efforts?

R.1 - The Government takes the threat of African swine fever seriously.
A pan-Canadian approach is being implemented to focus on prevention, biosecurity, and preparedness. It also promotes business continuity and communications, including international zoning agreements.
As part of this plan, strong import controls are in place. These include restrictions on the importation of live pigs, pork and pork by-products, plant-based feeds from affected regions, and using Canada Border Services Agency border services officers and detector dogs at entry points. R.2 - This $23.4M funding over three years (2022-23 to 2024-25) supports projects such as improving on-farm biosecurity, reducing disease transmission, wild pig management, communications, response planning, retrofits, modeling and diagnostics. Thirteen projects have already been completed in the areas of vaccine research, planning, equipment purchases and processing plant retrofits.
The African Swine Fever Industry Preparedness Program has put more than 36 projects in place since it was launched in 2022 and will accept applications on an ongoing basis until November 30, 2024, or otherwise indicated by the program. R.3 - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency hosted exercises in 2023-24 on the disease response and preparedness that included participants and observers from international, federal and provincial/territorial governments, pork producers and processors, and Animal Health Canada.
Stakeholders developed common understandings of disease response and tested various preparedness plans. They simulated onset of an outbreak with a focus on stakeholder notifications, public communications, movement controls and disease control zones, laboratory preparedness for African swine fever and emerging zoonotic diseases.
Exercises will continue into 2024-25 as a key element of African swine fever preparedness validation and refinement.

Risks and impacts of African swine fever to Canada’s hog industry
African swine fever does not pose a food safety risk and has never been reported in Canada.
The introduction of African swine fever into Canada would have a significant impact on the entire pork value chain. Initially, all export markets of live pigs and pork products could immediately close and some could remain closed for several months.
African swine fever is a contagious viral disease that can cause high death rates in infected pigs. It can be spread directly between sick and healthy pigs as well as by indirect means (e.g. contaminated objects, such as farm equipment, clothes and livestock feed).There is currently no treatment or vaccine for African swine fever that is approved for use in Canada.
African swine fever is a reportable disease under the Health of Animals Act. This means that any suspected case of African swine fever must be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The CFIA encourages pork producers to maintain a high level of biosecurity on their farms. African swine fever is also a World Organisation for Animal Health listed disease, meaning that member countries such as Canada must submit timely information on disease situations.
The hog/pork industry is an important part of Canada’s agriculture and agri-food sector and the Canadian economy as a whole.
• Canada is the 5th largest pork producer in the world, representing roughly 2% of total global production.
• Canada is also the 3rd largest pork exporter after the European Union and the United States, representing 13% of the world pork trade.
• In 2022, over 1.39 million tonnes of pork, valued at $4.8 billion, were exported to 77 countries. The Canadian hog sector contributes an estimated $28 billion to the economy and supports roughly 100,000 jobs.
• There are 7,330 hog farms and 26 federally inspected processing facilities as well as provincially inspected processing facilities.
• In 2022, 28 million hogs were produced, with inventories concentrated in Quebec (31%), Ontario (26%) and Manitoba (23%).
• Slaughter capacity also resides primarily in Quebec (38%), Ontario (19%) and Manitoba (28%).
• Exports of live hogs are also an important segment of Canada’s hog industry. In 2020, 5.3 million live hogs were exported to the United States, which represents approximately 19% of Canada’s total hog marketing (i.e., slaughter and live hog exports).
• The Canadian hog sector is highly integrated with the United States sector.

Detection of African swine fever in various countries
On August 3, 2018, China notified the World Organisation for Animal Health of the presence of African swine fever in the province of Liaoning. Since then, outbreaks have been confirmed throughout China and affected over a dozen other Asian countries.
• The ongoing spread and persistent presence of African swine fever poses a serious threat to the global swine population.
• African swine fever continues to spread in both domestic pigs and wild boar across Europe and Asia at an alarming rate.
• Wild boar played a significant role in the persistence of the virus. African swine fever has been detected in the Americas with findings reported in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti in 2021.
• In September 2023, Sweden detected African swine fever for the first time in wild pig populations. While a source of the disease has not been confirmed, human mediated spread is suspected given the large distance to the nearest cases. The Government of Canada continues to work extensively with international trading partners to prevent entry and mitigate the impacts of African swine fever in the Americas.
• Zoning is a disease control tool that separates areas of the country where disease is present and where disease is absent. Recognition of zoning decisions allows trade to resume from the disease-free parts of the country.
• The goal of the zoning disease control tool is containment of the disease to part or parts of the country to support eradication of the disease and to return Canada to an African swine fever-free disease status.
• In an effort to proactively minimize the impact of a positive African swine fever detection, Canada has confirmed zoning arrangements with key trading partners such as the European Union, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam. These arrangements cover 35.61% of our pork export volume in terms of quantity. Canada is also exploring zoning arrangements with Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Mexico, Peru, Bahamas, Chile and Colombia. Canada is engaging with members of the Quad Alliance (U.K., Australia and New Zealand) on broader zoning for African swine fever.
• In March 2021, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the United States Department of Agriculture signed a protocol to guide bilateral trade in the event that African swine fever is detected in wild pigs.

Actions to date
Mitigating and responding to the potential threat of an African swine fever outbreak in Canada has been a government priority since 2018.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have engaged with industry and the provinces and territories through an Executive Management Board.
The Executive Management Board provides leadership and strategic direction, through the Pan-Canadian African Swine Fever Action Plan, to provide a focused and coordinated approach to African swine fever prevention and preparedness under four pillars: preparedness planning; enhanced biosecurity; business continuity; and coordinated risk communications.
The Pan-Canadian African Swine Fever Action Plan provides guidance and strategic direction to industry to coordinate the wide range of African swine fever activities in Canada.
In 2023-2024, the key priorities include supporting the advancement of the Invasive Wild Pig Strategy, clarification of roles and responsibilities and inter-organizational communications in the event of an African swine fever outbreak.
The Action Plan also supports the development of tools for response (e.g. depopulation and disposal decision tools), financial recovery support for producers and processors, an African swine fever communication plan which includes preparing Canadians in advance on what to expect regarding African swine fever response efforts, and gathering resources to support mental health in the event of an African swine fever outbreak.
On August 26, 2022, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced an investment of $45.3M into preventing and preparing for African swine fever.
Of these funds, $23.4M is being made available to industry through the African Swine Fever Industry Preparedness Program for activities such as biosecurity assessments, wild pig management, abattoir retrofits and research and analysis.
To date,
• up to $12.4M in funding has been approved. Of that, $1.8M in funding has been approved to help industry in managing and eradicating wild pigs.
• $19.8M is being dedicated to supporting Canadian Food Inspection Agency efforts such as testing response capabilities through exercises involving various stakeholders, increased surveillance, laboratory testing capacity, supporting international partners in the development of an African swine fever vaccine, and establishing African swine fever zoning arrangements with key trading partners.
• The remaining $2.1M is being used to enhance the Canada Border Services Agency border control activities.
• In November 2023, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency hosted a table top planning exercise in which the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, provinces and territories, Chief Veterinary Officers, industry representatives, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Animal Health Canada discussed and tested African swine fever response plans and roles and responsibilities. Additional simulation exercises are planned for 2024-25.
• In February 2024, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and industry discussed their respective plans, procedure, as well as roles and responsibilities regarding the return or redirect of any shipments rejected by trading partners in the event African swine fever is detected in Canada.

The CFIA is following the international situation closely and has strong import controls in place to prevent the import of live pigs, pork products and by-products from countries and zones affected by African swine fever. For example, the CFIA:
• has issued border lookouts for countries where active outbreaks are occurring;
• has worked with the Canada Border Services Agency to increase the number of food, plant and animal detector dogs at Canadian airports;
• is following the situation in the European Union closely and is only allowing imports from zones that are not affected or that are not identified as high-risk zones for African swine fever (this is in accordance with the agreed-upon zoning protocol); and
• continues to work with the Canada Border Services Agency and airlines to mitigate the risks related to illegal imports and travellers.
Canada has been recognized as a global leader in scientific and technical expertise to address problems relating to African swine fever. In May 2022, the World Organisation for Animal Health officially recognized the CFIA’s National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg as a World Organisation for Animal Health Reference Laboratory for African swine fever. There are only six other laboratories in the world with that designation.
The Government of Canada has led significant work in communications surrounding African swine fever, through airport signage and in-flight messaging to travellers and is currently delivering targeted communications directed at small producers, retailers and travellers.
Detector dogs are the Canada Border Services Agency’s best tool for detecting undeclared food, plant and animal products.
To help prevent African swine fever from entering Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency’s received approximately $31M through Budget 2019 to acquire and train an additional 24 food, plant animal detector dog teams.
To date, 21 of the additional 24 detector dog teams have been deployed at Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver airports and mail centres. The deployment of the remaining five teams is on track for 2023-24.
In June 2024, the CFIA will host a virtual functional exercise on African swine fever. The exercise will test ASF notification pathways and involve Federal, Provincial, and industry organizations.

The exercise will focus on notifications and communication pathways occurring in real time within the CFIA, between CFIA and stakeholders, and within stakeholders’ own organizations during the beginning phases of an ASF investigation (identification of a high risk suspect premises, receiving a presumptive positive, and finally a confirmed positive result). The exercise objectives are to implement and test notification pathways, identify any gaps in these pathways or areas where further improvement is possible, and to assess the effectiveness of current notification plans.

• The Government takes the threat of African swine fever seriously and recognizes the impact that this disease could have on our pork sector if detected in Canada.

• In August 2022, $45.3M was announced to help prevent the entry of African swine fever into Canada, and to put contingency plans in place to prepare for a potential outbreak.

• The Government will continue to work with all stakeholders to prepare for and prevent the potential introduction of African swine fever into Canada.