The UK's heightened African swine fever risk must be matched by the government strengthening border controls, NFU Scotland warns.
The union has welcomed the decision by the government to increase the risk status of people bringing the devastating pig disease ASF to the UK from medium to high and calls on it to go further.
Now that Defra’s own scientists have recognised the threat, it has reiterated its call for the government to introduce border control inspections on meat entering the country.
The decision to upgrade the risk status on ‘human mediated pathways’ follows the spread of ASF westwards across Europe to parts of Germany, with new cases ‘jumping’ several hundred kilometres from previous cases.
That has led to vets concluding that human movement with infected produce, subsequently fed to pigs or the transport of infected equipment is likely to be responsible.
NFU Scotland says the whole risk spectrum associated with the disease should be moved to high and border checks on meat legally entering the country introduced.
Currently, some supermarkets and food manufacturers are importing meat from ASF-free regions of Germany and other countries that have the disease.
However, no checks are currently undertaken by the UK government on Animal Health Certifications to ensure that this is being properly enforced.
NFU Scotland’s Pigs Committee Chair, Jamie Wyllie said the UK government must now go further in preparing for the possibility of ASF entry into the UK.
"Its current plans to postpone proper border checks on food entering the UK from Europe until the end of 2023, given the rising disease threat, remain completely unacceptable," he warned.
“We are importing meat from countries with ASF and I struggle to understand why Defra does not aim to close this gaping hole in our country’s biosecurity."
He added: "It must ensure checks are in place for products of animal origin entering the UK, in the same way that Europe requires checks on UK products entering the EU.
“Protecting our border from disease ingress and implementing proper inspection of meat being imported into our country is entirely in the UK government’s hands.
"ASF is not in the UK and the government should be doing everything within its powers to keep it out.”
