ASF, FMD would devastate US pork industry

• From WATTAgNet:
  The U.S. pork industry has been struggling since Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) virus first struck in 2013. However, one industry expert says other diseases could prove to be much more damaging to the industry.
  African swine fever (ASF) has been plaguing countries like Latvia, Chad, Russia and Lithuania, while nations in Africa, Asia and Brazil have been battling foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in both pigs and cattle. Should these diseases spread into North America, its impact would be particularly harmful as outbreaks could put a halt to exports of U.S. pork and beef.
  “If we get them, we will lose key export markets,” Dermot Hayes, agribusiness professor at Iowa State University, told Agriculture.com. “We would need to ask Americans to eat 25 percent as much pork and 10 percent more beef. Wholesale prices could fall 50 percent. That is a big problem.”
  Just because ASF and FMD are an ocean apart from the U.S., it doesn’t mean that they can’t spread to the U.S., said Hayes. “Nobody expected PED to cross the Pacific Ocean,” said Hayes, pictured below.
  One way to help prevent ASF and FMD from reaching North America is by improving biosecurity efforts. That would include having airport security crews checking to see that nobody brings meat products into the U.S. that could eventually be eaten by animals and start an outbreak.