The National Institute of Food and Agriculture has awarded $650,000 to the Swine Health Information Center. The objective will be to evaluate methods of detecting and preventing transmission of African swine fever in imported soybean products. A component of the project will be to refine diagnostic procedures for ASF and other viruses in imported soybean meal and cake. Dr. Megan Niederwerder, Director of the Project, stated, “The knowledge generated thus far has supported mitigation strategies but the Swine Health Information Center wants to continue to define best practices for preventing ASF from entering the Country through this route.”
Presumably, organic certified soybean cake is imported into the U. S. for swine diets for the limited organic pork sector. Since much of the imported product is derived from China where AFS is endemic, the risk to the U. S. swine industry is self-evident.
It is questioned why the U. S., a major producer of soybeans and derived products, cannot make available organic soybean cake or extruded organic soybeans as ingredients at prices that compete with imported presumed organic meal from China.