ILOILO – The fight to restore Iloilo’s swine industry from the devastation of African swine fever (ASF) is gaining ground, with the Department of Agriculture (DA) Region 6 scaling up its sentinel animal program to nine more municipalities after seeing positive results in Oton.
Provincial government veterinarian Dr. Darel Tabuada confirmed that nearly all of the sentinel piglets earlier distributed in Oton survived, indicating that the environment is now free of the ASF virus.
“It means that in their environment, there are no longer traces of the African swine fever (ASF) virus,” he said.
The DA initially dispersed 72 piglets to Oton farmers last year. Encouraged by the outcome, the agency is now rolling out the same initiative to 181 farmers in Zarraga, New Lucena, Mina, Janiuay, Dingle, Banate, Barotac Viejo, Batad, and Lambunao.
Each farmer-beneficiary will receive one piglet along with starter and grower feeds, multivitamins, and antibiotics.
The sentineling period will last 45 days. Tabuada said Oton could soon be placed in the yellow (surveillance) zone, pending completion of requirements and results from the nine towns.
Meanwhile, the provincial government is complementing the DA’s initiative with its own recovery program, releasing P10.03 million to fund the distribution of 1,672 piglets to 836 farmers in 14 municipalities.
Several towns, including Barotac Viejo, Sta. Barbara, San Miguel, Zarraga, Oton, and Mina, have already rolled out piglet dispersal, while others are finalizing procurement.
Tabuada also pointed to the DA’s Integrated National Swine Production Initiatives for Recovery and Expansion (INSPIRE) program as another key boost, with operations already underway in Santa Barbara and Bingawan and construction of facilities ongoing in 15 other sites. Each site will be able to house about 300 hogs.
“If these inputs of the Department of Agriculture will become successful, especially its INSPIRE program, and our commercial farms will become fully operationalize, hopefully, we can see that our swine inventory in the province will stabilize,” he said./PN
