African Swine Fever (ASF) was a key topic discussed at Manitoba Pork's fall meetings held this week in Niverville and Portage.

"It's the most talked about issue in the pork sector in the world today," said Chair George Matheson. "We've kept it out of Canada and North America so far but as most people know, we're vulnerable to exports. We export 70 per cent of our product out of this country and a case of African Swine Fever would close us to the export markets indefinitely. So, we want to prepare ourselves as much as possible, hope for the best but prepare for the worst."

Matheson said its been another tough year for PED virus in Manitoba, with 79 cases confirmed so far. There were 80 cases in 2017 and only 17 last year.

"The general feeling in the province is we want to eradicate and completely eliminate that virus from the province but if we're going to do that we're going to have to start doing something different otherwise we're going to be in the cycle that we currently seem to be in."