{"id":9756,"date":"2018-08-30T16:45:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T23:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=9756"},"modified":"2018-08-30T22:46:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T05:46:47","slug":"china-probably-underreporting-swine-fever-u-s-agricultures-perdue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=9756","title":{"rendered":"China probably underreporting swine fever: U.S. Agriculture&#8217;s Perdue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AMES, Iowa (Reuters) &#8211; An outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) in China\u2019s hogs is probably bigger than what has been reported publicly, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<div class=\"PrimaryAsset_container\">\n<div class=\"Image_container\" tabindex=\"-1\">\n<div class=\"Image_caption\">Piglets are seen by a sow at a pig farm in Zhoukou, Henan province, China June 3, 2018. REUTERS\/Stringer<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe think that it probably has been underreported in China &#8211; the way they\u2019re able to control their media about that,\u201d Perdue said at Landus Cooperative office in Ames, Iowa.<\/p>\n<p>China on Aug. 3 reported its first cases of the deadly ASF in Liaoning province and found another outbreak in Zhengzhou in central Henan province two weeks later.<\/p>\n<p>The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Thursday said ASF has infected 185 pigs on a farm in Wuhu, in eastern Anhui province, China\u2019s fifth outbreak of the deadly disease this month.<\/p>\n<p>The news has pushed up U.S. hog prices and raised concerns of the disease spreading into other parts of Asia. [LIV\/]<\/p>\n<p>ASF has been detected in Russia and Eastern Europe as well as Africa, though never before in East Asia, and is one of the most devastating diseases to affect swine herds.<\/p>\n<p>It would be \u201cdevastating\u201d if ASF entered the United States, not only for hogs but for grain handlers and farmers who grow crops used as animal feed, Perdue said.<\/p>\n<p>The USDA\u2019s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is responsible for keeping out foreign animal diseases.<\/p>\n<p>That is why there are agricultural checks made at borders and airports, Perdue said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe try to have a really hard line over the protections of international travel,\u201d he said. \u201cAPHIS is on the job every day trying to keep any of that kind of thing from coming because it would be absolutely devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AMES, Iowa (Reuters) &#8211; An outbreak&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9757,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9756\/revisions\/9757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}