Govt plans surveillance investment to bolster animal disease response

T he Ministry of Agriculture said on Tuesday it is preparing a major investment programme to strengthen surveillance, testing and monitoring across animal and food production to improve its readiness for potentially devastating disease outbreaks. Minister of Agriculture Dr Shantal Munro-Knight said stronger surveillance and testing capacity were critical to protecting food security, trade and farmers’ livelihoods.

As she opened a workshop on developing a rapid response to African Swine Fever, held at the Hilton Barbados Resort, Dr Munro-Knight said Barbados slaughtered between 25 000 and 30 000 pigs annually, though that figure had declined from about 50 000 in previous years. “That’s a lot of pigs. That’s a lot of pork consumed,” she said, while noting that the country also imported about US$1. 5m ($3m) in pork products annually for processing. African swine fever, a transboundary animal disease, could have devastating consequences for small farmers and people whose livelihoods were closely tied to agriculture, she noted. “We…