The Iloilo Provincial Government has already extended a total of P12,462,000 in financial assistance to municipalities affected by the African Swine Fever (ASF).

Iloilo Gov. Arthur Defensor Jr. said the Provincial Veterinary Office (PVO) distributed the assistance to 1,325 affected farmers from 26 towns in the province.

The provincial government was able to give P7,000 each to the farmers who had one to five hog heads being depopulated; P10,000 for six to 10 heads depopulated; P15,000 for 11 to 15 heads; P20,000 for 16 to 20 heads; P25,000 for 21 to 25 heads; and P30,000 for 26 heads and above that were depopulated.

The bracketing guideline used for the distribution of cash assistance was anchored to Defensor’s Executive Order No. 545, which also stated that the farm must be subjected to disease investigation and and the depopulation must be documented using the Disease Investigation Form, ASF Depopulation Form, and Masterlist of Depopulation for the farmers to be qualified for the cash assistance.

Aside from the financial assistance, the provincial government also downloaded P4,900,000 to 14 municipalities that were previously used in support of their border control checkpoint.

They already established recovery measures anchored on the Department of

Agriculture’s (DA) Administrative Order (AO) No. 30 to address the depleted hog inventory and the possible shortage of pork supply.

Defensor said that the province is now pursuing a sentinel program at the barangay level as one of its recovery measures for ASF, citing that 104 farms in Ajuy, 19 in New Lucena, eight in Barotac Viejo, and one farm in Santa Barbara are currently undergoing validation for the sentinel program.

“Our agriculture (DA) is now finalizing the figures kung diin kita pwede ka disperse nga makadugang kita, sa mga backyard farmers naton, sa lugar nga mapag-on kita (Our agriculture department is now finalizing the figures on where we can disperse to our backyard farmers, where we are most stable) ,” Defensor said.

The PVO previously said that they will have to conduct a final validation on the readiness of hog raisers, particularly if biosecurity measures are in place.

Each hog raiser will be given three sentinel piglets to raise; these will be monitored to see whether or not they get infected by the hog disease.

For two months, the DA and PVO will monitor the sentinel piglets regularly by collecting blood samples to test for ASF infection.

If the sentinels get infected with ASF, they will be depopulated, but when the results are negative, all hog raisers in that barangay can start repopulating hogs.

The governor also welcomed the idea of using artificial insemination instead of a boar to prevent possible ASF transmission in areas where there are no more cases or the hog depopulation is complete.

Data from the PVO, on the other hand, indicated that 27 towns had been infected by the ASF since it hit the province last year.

Data also showed that 2,211 farmers were affected, while a total of 14,658 swine heads were depopulated so far.

The swine disease also led to decrease in the pork supply in Iloilo, but the provincial government explained that it is still sufficient for the consumption of the locals, noting that locally made processed pork products were not affected.

The PVO, however, pointed out that the decrease in the province’s swine inventory has caused Iloilo to stop exporting hogs since March 2023.

The PVO data as of Sept. 27, 2023, revealed that swine inventory in the province was reduced by 72.27 percent, or 200,504 swine heads out of the 277,421 hogs in its inventory in September 2022, which the provincial government continues to address through different recovery measures.AAL/JNH/PIA6 Iloilo