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East Asia -
Foot and Mouth Disease |
From China Food & Agriculture, ClearThinking.com, April 2000
The return of foot-and-mouth disease to East Asia sparks an ugly melee.
In the first confirmed outbreaks since 1997, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in South Korea is threatening the livestock industry and its related trade in Northeast Asia. The country declared the outbreak zone a disaster area, and closed all 133 of its cattle markets through April. Japan, after finding symptoms of FMD at two cattle ranches, has also taken immediate emergency measures. In response, governments in China, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong have banned meat and dairy imports from both countries. The acrimony this has sparked since late March underscores the trade issues at stake.
Anatomy of an outbreak
FMD is a highly communicable disease that affects hoofed animals such as pigs, cattle and sheep. While it cannot be transmitted to humans, it can decimate cattle and hog herds. A 1997 outbreak in Taiwan forced officials to slaughter the island’s entire hog population, causing a loss of some $1.4 billion. Its hog industry has never fully recovered.
The first reports of the most recent outbreak came from South Korea in late March, where cattle on two farms in Paju, 40 kilometers northeast of Seoul, came down with symptoms. Despite slaughtering some 100 heads of cattle, new cases were reported on four farms in Boryoung and Hwasong counties—some 150 kilometers south in South Chungchong province. The British Pirbright Institute confirmed that the vesicular virus found on March 20 was a genuine case of FMD.
By April 6, Korean authorities announced that the disease had spread to seven areas and 35 farms in the two provinces. A week later, 91,000 cattle had been slaughtered and its cattle markets had been dosed down. South Korea has inoculated all 11 million of its domestic cattle and pigs, along with 5 million more imported from Britain, France and Germany
Meanwhile, on March 25 in Japan’s Miyazaki province, symptoms of FMD were discovered in ten cows. Japanese officials responded promptly, slaughtering the suspected carriers. The government has since conducted tests on over 3,000 farms to find clues about how the disease had spread. Less than 30 Japanese beef cattle have been slaughtered, after a total of 14 were found to carry FMD antibodies. By most appearances Japan looks as if it has contained the disease from spreading further. Officials in the UK testing for the disease said that the antibodies found were similar but not the same as the difficult to contain type-O strain that ravaged Taiwan’s hog herds a few years back.
Back and Forth
The question of how the disease appeared in two Asian countries within days of each other remains unanswered. Both Japan and Korea have pointed an accusing finger at China, and officials from both countries have blamed a dried grass that was imported from the mainland. The Korean government said that the straw could have been mixed in with its feed. Officials in Paju said 23% or 45,000 metric tons of the straw South Korea imported through March came from China, of which 50 tons were doled out to the Paju township.
China’s Ministry of Agriculture, particularly its Animal Quarantine Division (AQD), has insisted on the impossibility of Chinese straw as the cause, and COFCO averred that it had found no straw, much less contaminated straw, mixed in with its recent corn feed exports. AQD’s director, Wang Changjiang added that this was the first time that straw has ever been suspected as a culprit.
And on April 26, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua ran a brief stating that the Korean embassy via a letter, had admitted that its recent FMD outbreak had not come from Chinese corn. Neither Korea’s major newspapers nor the major newswires report the story. More questionable is the health of the Chinese livestock industry. According to World Perspectives International (WPI), conversations with local officials and farmers in South China over the past 18 months have revealed stories of Chinese officials eradicating dairy and beef cattle herds, with little or no explanation.
In late April, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Vladimir Scherbak told Russian news agencies that it had closed Russian trade of Kazakh and Chinese beef. Scherbak said that numerous cattle on a Russian farm 30 kilometers from the Chinese border have contracted FMD. He also chastised China for evading discussion on the spread of the disease. But FMD, according to one western diplomat, is present in Russia.
Although the shadow of the 1997 outbreak hangs over China, its guilt has not been proven. Officials would have to confirm a point of contamination and then determine whether the disease could still be viable in the exported feed. One western agricultural expert said that Chinese feed was an unlikely culprit, since it rarely comes into contact with animals before being exported, and that it probably would not survive the feed-drying process. Straw or no straw, China is a still a likely suspect, as the presence of FMD in China is an open secret within the agricultural community.
If Chinese straw did contain the virus, it could have easily slipped through Korea’s checkpoints. The National Plant Quarantine says it looks only for harmful insects during its quarantine process— not infectious viruses. The National Veterinary and Quarantine Service further claims that it only checks to see whether or not the imported dried grass has undergone proper inspections in the source country.
But actions—in this case, trade—speak louder than words. In Japan thus far, suspension of Japanese meat imports has had little effect on a beef industry limited to high quality Kobe beef raised primarily for domestic consumption.
In Korea, for the short-term, domestic consumers should absorb the pork supplies that cannot be exported. But the peninsula could stand more industry bloodletting. In early April, Seoul-based Sejong Securities forecast that the total economic losses from the livestock disease could eventually amount to $45 billion. But the firm’s estimation includes the eventual slaughter of some 2.8 million heads of cattle, pigs and secondary losses—such as dairy sales—to farmers. No plans, however, for such wholesale slaughter have been put forward. However, it still harbors the fear that the virus will jump from cattle to the more highly confined hogs, where it could spread with alarming speed.
Meat exports to Korea could also increase later in the year particularly if the initial panic over eating domestic beef proves to be longer lived, and Koreans still shun their beef and leave once popular restaurants empty at lunch.
Chinese corn exports, which had started the year off very well, may stumble too. South Korea has close to 5 million metric tons of Chinese corn on the books for delivery through October, but signs are that they may need or want less. In late March, Korea had refused a 10,000 metric ton shipment of Chinese corn feed. And in early April, Korean officials showed up overnight in the US to purchase 30,000 metric tons of the country’s corn, an action done with enough spontaneity to raise doubts about its corn commitments to China. By the end of April. Korean traders had not conducted any tenders for Chinese corn for that month. A Chinese trader reportedly said that South Korea had requested delays in their shipments due to an anticipated consumption drops, and that other nations such as the Philippines were abstaining from buying corn as well.
Yet, the real story may yet be the state of China’s livestock. Some industry analysts have become suspicious of China’s watchfulness over its livestock operations. if reports of FMD become impossible to conceal, imports of beef and pork could be even higher than anticipated once protective barriers come down after China’s entry in the WTO. And the failure to contain the virus could again spoil the mood of East Asia’s livestock trade.
Microbial Information Network of China
cn.yahoo.com - 科学 > 农业 (Agriculture)
www.bjmu.edu.cn - Beijing Medical University - Research Organizations
ChinaFood.gov.cn - China Defines Grain Purchase Pricing Policy (no longer available)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
Forward 100 Years of Virology - By 1989 (1889?), F.A.J. Loeffler and P. Frosch had isolated and described the first filterable agent from animals, the foot-and-mouth-disease virus.
United States Department of Agriculture - Foreign Agricultural Service - Search "Foot and Mouth"
Information Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office - CICC ChinaNews Wire - Foot-mouth disease symptoms found in Taiwan from CHINA NEWS, 22 January 2000 - All cloven-hoofed animals ordered vaccinated, 134 killed in bid to prevent spread of disease; officials say milk safe.
Welcome To BASF Group Companies In Asia Pacific BASF Thai Ltd.
Office International des épizooties (World Organization for Animal Health)
CSIRO Australia - Scientific and Industrial Research - Animal Health - Meat Dairy and Aquaculture
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