Japan purchases mass pig, cattle stocks to control FMD

Japan, the world's biggest feed-grain importer, ordered a mass culling of pigs and cattle to prevent the spread of its first foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in a decade.

The government has ordered the destruction of 73,653 pigs in Miyazaki prefecture, about 0.7% of the national herd, said Shinichi Igawa at the animal health division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). About 6,600 beef cattle and cows, or 0.1% of the national total, will also be slaughtered, he said.

FMD is one of the most contagious animal diseases and can have high mortality rates in young animals, according to the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). The cull under way is more than 100-times larger than during Japan's last outbreak in 2010, when 740 animals were slaughtered in Miyazaki and on the northern island of Hokkaido.

The prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu is Japan's second-largest growing region for pigs and the third-largest for beef cattle.

Japan has restricted animal movements in the region. It is killing all stock at farms where suspected cases have been found and is disinfecting those areas. The government will pay for the cull and will support affected farmers to rebuild their business, said Yasuo Sasaki, senior press counselor at the agriculture ministry.

However, the outbreak does not appear to have affected domestic meat demand, Sasaki said.

Standard-grade pork on the Tokyo Meat Market sold for JPY480 (US$5.20) per kilogramme earlier, while the price for standard-grade beef was JPY1,539 (US$16.61). The prices were JPY457 (US$4.93) and JPY1,475 (US$15.92) on April 20, when the first cases were reported.

Feed corn purchases have also continued as normal, said Nobuyuki Chino, the president of Unipac Grain Ltd. Buyers have booked about 1.5 million tonnes of corn for shipment between July and September, covering 37% of their requirements for the period, Sasaki said.

On the other hand, last month, South Korea reported two cases of the disease at a pig farm in Chungju, south of Seoul, indicating the virus had spread inland from an earlier outbreak on Ganghwa Island. China reported an outbreak of the disease in March.