OTTAWA, Ontario – The United States and Canada agreed to modify export certificates to ensure safe trade in the event an outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in either country, Canada’s Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) Jaspinder Komal, DVM and the United States’ CVO Jack Shere, DVM, said in a joint statement.

“For business continuity, Canada and the United States have worked to modify their export certificates to allow trade of live swine, swine semen, pet food and animal by-products and meat to continue trade in approved disease-free zones in the event of an ASF outbreak,” the statement said. “This builds on Canada and US zoning arrangements entered into by CFIA and USDA on Aug. 15, 2018, which set out principles for zoning and trade.”

Under the terms of the agreement, geographic boundaries will be defined to contain the outbreak, while areas outside of the control zones will be designated as disease-free zones. The arrangement was designed to protect the Canadian and US pork industries.

US pork producers supports more than a half million jobs and provided roughly 25 billion lbs. of meat to consumers around the world. US pork producers marketed more than 120 million hogs in 2017, which provided total cash receipts of more than $20 billion.

The Canadian pork industry contributes to more than 100,000 jobs and generates close to C$24 billion which includes farms, inputs, processing and pork exports. Canada is the third-largest pork exporting country in both value and volume and represents about 20 percent of world pork trade. In 2017, 1.2 million tonnes of Canadian pork valued at C$4 billion were exported to over 100 countries.

“A global threat, ASF cannot be addressed in isolation,” Shere and Komal’s statement said. “Only by working together with governments, industry and other stakeholders can we best address the threat of ASF while maintaining trade of pork and pork products which are important to the Canadian and US economies.”