After news simultaneously broke from different parts of Taiwan that pigs were dying after foaming at the mouth and with their feet ulcerated, on March 20, the Council of Agriculture (COA) declared Taiwan to be an area infected with foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), with all pigs in Taiwan threatened by the virus. Currently, only Ilan, Hualien, and Taitung, behind the barrier of the Central Mountain Range, remain unaffected. Pig farmers in all other areas live under the shadow of FMD.

After the COA declaration of Taiwan as an FMD area, within one week (as of this writing), more than 700 farms in 14 cities and counties across Taiwan reported FMD cases. Of 660,000 hogs in the affected area, nearly one quarter were infected, with more than 110,000 dead or slaughtered. This epidemic has created panic in the hog-raising, feed, and pork processing industries, as well as among consumers.

Hog-raising accounts for nearly 30% of the total value of the economic category of agriculture, forestry, fishing, and animal husbandry in Taiwan. Annual exports exceed US$1.5 billion, the largest animal husbandry export from Taiwan, nearly 50% of which goes to Japan. When the epidemic was declared, exports were immediately halted, putting the whole hog-raising industry in peril. It is estimated that it will take several years for things to return to normal.

After the COA declaration, demand for pork plummeted. Pork prices fell from NT$40 or so per kilo to under NT$10. The stock market also dove, interrupting the sharp upswing that had been going on since the beginning of this year. In particular, investors frantically sold off shares in companies which export frozen pork.

FMD is a highly contagious illness affecting artiodactyls (animals with an even number of toes per foot). It can be transmitted through the air, so infections spread very rapidly. Moreover, the virus can be carried out of infected areas on humans, vehicles, machinery, or other animals, thus spreading.

With such a serious outbreak of livestock disease, the COA has naturally become a target of criticism. FMD broke out long ago in the PRC and Southeast Asia, but Taiwan took no preventive measures. Not only did people routinely travel to infected areas and farms, illegal migrants from mainland China have been hired to work pig farms. Much pork has also been smuggled into Taiwan from the PRC. These are all gaps in the prevention policy.

The day after declaring the epidemic, the COA convened a multi-ministerial emergency committee, which decided to call for mass slaughtering of all hogs in any farm where cases of FMD occur. Counties in southern Taiwan even called on the military for help in carrying out this decision.

Also, it was decided that the Central Bank will arrange to release NT$20 billion in low-interest (3%) loans, and affected households can apply for relief. FMD vaccines have been urgently imported, arriving in Taiwan on the 26th. It looks like the epidemic will be gradually brought under control.

But some pig farmers and legislators do not approve of these measures. Legislator Lin Kuang-hua urged a total slaughter of all hogs to crush the epidemic and eliminate any shadow that Taiwan is an "infected area" as early as possible, so that exports can resume.

But much opinion opposes such a policy. This is because hog-raising is a high-pollution industry-one hog produces six times as much waste as a typical human, and the hog population in Taiwan was, at the start of the epidemic, as high as half the human population-so they are a major threat to the environment. Many are in no hurry to get the industry back to full production. Indeed, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Chih-kang has called on the COA to reevaluate domestic livestock policy so that Taiwan will no longer serve as Japan's hog farm.

Apart from this, if all of the more than ten million hogs were slaughtered at once, there is absolutely no way to appropriately deal with the corpses. FMD could easily spread if corpses were moved, and there are not enough incineration facilities, so virtually all slaughtered hogs must be buried on the spot, which raises concerns about pollution of ground water.

Besides environmental worries, a total slaughter of hogs would put the 700,000 people in related industries out of work. The effects would be too far-reaching, so COA chairman Chiu Mao-ying has declared a total slaughter impossible.

The government is using a two-track policy of inoculation and selective slaughter, and it will take three to five years after the epidemic is under control to make Taiwan infection-free. The damage to the local pork industry will take a long time to heal.

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The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has caused the pork market to collapse. Even though health officials have worked to inspect butchers' stalls, it has been impossible to put consumers at ease. The photo shows health inspectors at the Huannan Market. (photo by Han Tung-ching)