ASF could cost Australia $2.5 billion

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) estimated the costs to the economy of two plausible scenarios for an African swine fever (ASF) incursion into Australia - incursions into either the feral pig population or the domestic production system - as well as the costs of ASF becoming endemic.

The potential costs of this key threat entering Australia include the costs of eradication, costs to industry until the disease is eradicated, and long-term costs of ASF’s presence should eradication prove economically or technically infeasible. These estimates provide insights into the value of keeping ASF out of Australia. Should an incursion occur in the future, the endemic cost could be used to assess the costs and benefits of eradication decisions.

Key findings:

• A small-scale outbreak of ASF in domestic pigs followed by eradication of the disease was estimated to cost $117 million to $263 million.
• A small-scale outbreak of ASF in feral pigs followed by eradication of the disease was estimated to cost $101 million to $127 million.
• Endemic ASF was estimated to cost between about $0.4 billion and $2.5 billion.

Several features of the Australian pig industry are likely to influence the costs associated with the disease and response to an incursion. These include:

• No redundancy – any delay in pig movements will result in farms holding more pigs than they can accommodate, leading to animal welfare problems developing.
• Few abattoirs, largely operating at capacity – any reduction in capacity could result in long-distance interstate movements of pigs to another facility (if capacity, logistical, and welfare considerations allow) or backlogs of slaughter-ready pigs on-farm, exacerbating animal welfare issues.
• Many interstate movements – restrictions on interjurisdictional movements during a disease response will cause major disruptions to normal pig flows within the system.
• Most offal is exported – as there is almost no domestic market for offal, excess will need to be disposed of resulting in abattoirs losing revenue from offal sales and incurring disposal costs – this reduction in profitability is likely to be reflected in higher slaughter fees.
• A small number of producers own most of the herd – there are many small enterprises, which tend to have poorer on-farm biosecurity measures (Schembri et al. 2015).