"The number of farm pigs that died due to the ASF virus is around 122 thousand heads, spread across 22 districts/cities," Head of the East Nusa Tenggara Livestock Office Johanna Lisapaly informed in Kupang.
The losses due to the outbreak of ASF in hogs in East Nusa Tenggara have reached hundreds of billions of rupiah, Lisapaly said.
The government has carried out various preventive efforts to control the spread of ASF, such as raising awareness about ASF among farming communities and educating them about avoiding cross-breeding local pigs with pigs from outside the region, she informed.
In addition, communities have been advised to maintain the sanitation of hogs' pens, she added. Some policies have also been issued prohibiting outside pigs from being distributed in the region, she said.
On account of the various efforts made, as of July 2022, there have been no more reports of hog deaths due to ASF, she informed.
Furthermore, she said, the East Nusa Tenggara provincial government is also striving to revive the pig farming industry in the province through a movement called “Awareness Campaign for ASF and Other Infectious Animal Diseases,” launched in collaboration with Prisma Indonesia (the Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Promoting Rural Incomes through Support for Markets in Agriculture).
The campaign is expected to motivate livestock breeding communities and business players to revive pig farms to gain economic, social, and cultural benefits.
"Domesticated pigs have a variety of strategic benefits for the community, so people should no longer be afraid to re-develop it (pig farms) while being vigilant against disease attacks," Lisapaly said.
According to data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the population of domesticated pigs in East Nusa Tenggara province increased by 20.10 percent from 2,025,412 in 2018 to 2,432,501 in 2019.
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Translator: Aloysius L, Kenzu T
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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