DEPOPULATION. A piggery farm in Leyte province in this undated photo. The Municipal Agriculturist of Odiongan town, Romblon province on Wednesday (Dec. 20, 2023) said his office is fast-tracking the culling of pigs in several villages to arrest the spread of African swine fever. (PNA file photo)
ODIONGAN, Romblon – The Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO) here targets to complete the “depopulation” of pigs in the last of three barangays infected by African swine fever (ASF) by Thursday, while local hog raisers are looking forward to receiving their Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) indemnity payments.
In an interview on Wednesday, municipal agriculturist Rexfort Famisaran said that MAO personnel had just completed the culling and burying of some 132 pigs that were being raised in 33 separate backyard farms in Barangay Panique.
He said the last number of pigs scheduled to be euthanized are located in Barangay Tuburan, a community difficult to access because of inhospitable terrain.
The municipal official explained that earth-moving machinery, such as excavators and bulldozers need to be brought to the far-flung village to facilitate the burying of hundreds of pigs suspected of being infected with the ASF virus.
Famisaran noted that the three ASF-hit barangays in Odiongan have “hundreds” of backyard piggeries, most with “about five or six hogs.”
“We want to finish the depopulation right away. This has been accomplished in the two other affected villages… only Barangay Tuburan remains, which we hope to complete by tomorrow. We want to hurry this up because the DSWD has already paid hog farmers in other Romblon towns who submitted their pigs for culling,” Famisaran told the Philippine News Agency.
He said the municipal government hopes that affected hog farmers of Odiongan can receive their DSWD payout before yearend.
Famisaran said affected hog raisers stand to receive from the government PHP500 for every piglet and PHP1,000 for every weanling (one to three-month-old pigs) culled as part of the effort to contain the spread of ASF.
This is on top of the indemnity payments they stand to receive from the government-owned Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation, which recently offered free coverage to hog farmers here.
Famisaran further explained that backyard hog raisers in this 2nd class municipality may be forbidden to raise pigs while the ASF threat still looms, which can possibly take as long as six months.
However, he revealed that once the town has been declared ASF-free, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has announced that it will be replenishing the piglets of affected farmers for free.
“They (hog raisers) do not stand to lose their investments. The government will make sure that they can eventually return to their livelihoods,” Famisaran said in Filipino.
Meanwhile, the DSWD has extended assistance to more than 2,700 small hog farmers in the towns of Santa Fe, Alcantara, and Looc in this province whose piggeries had to be depopulated to avoid the further spread of ASF.
Abegail Fetilo, social welfare and development team leader, told reporters that a total of PHP6,084,000 was paid to hog farmers in these three jurisdictions last Dec. 14. (PNA)
