People who transport kitchen waste to hog farms could be fined up to NT$1 million (US$32,452) and a maximum NT$3 million fine could be imposed on those who feed pigs leftovers, Deputy Minister of Environment Shen Chih-hsiu (沈志修) said yesterday.
The Ministry of Agriculture has banned transporting or slaughtering pigs and feeding them kitchen waste after an African swine fever (ASF) case was discovered in Taichung earlier this week.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture Tu Wen-jane (杜文珍), the leader of the ASF response unit set up in the city, said that no more cases had been reported or confirmed as of yesterday.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Out of 435 farms nationwide that feed pigs kitchen leftovers, 434 must refrain from doing so during the ban period, she said.
The Taichung City Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office said that the city’s epidemic control personnel have inspected 106 of 168 hog farms and 58,030 pigs in the city, adding that the inspected pigs were all healthy and no abnormal deaths had been found.
Shen said that kitchen waste from places such as restaurants and schools would be collected as usual, but cannot be transported to hog farms during the ban.
Data from the Ministry of Environment showed that about 63 percent of kitchen waste from businesses nationwide was processed into animal feed, while leftovers from households were mostly processed into compost.
Leftover food from businesses must be delivered to sites designated by local environmental protection bureaus, Shen said.
Composting, anaerobic codigestion or biological treatment with black soldier flies would be used to process such kitchen waste, while incinerating or sending the waste to landfills would be adopted as supplementary approaches, he added.
Ministry data showed that kitchen waste repurposing facilities nationwide have a capacity of 1,620 tonnes per day, which is enough to process the 1,384 tonnes of household leftovers per day.
However, facilities would not be able to handle the additional 731 tonnes of kitchen waste from businesses, so that must be incinerated or to sent to landfills.
The ministry has issued guidelines on the kitchen waste ban for hog farms, Shen said.
Those who transport kitchen waste to hog farms could be fined up to NT$1 million, while those who feed pigs with kitchen waste could be fined a maximum of NT$3 million, he said.
Twenty-eight pigs were transported out of the affected farm before the ASF case was confirmed, Taichung Health Bureau Director Tseng Tzu-chan (曾梓展) said, adding that 21 had been slaughtered.
Of the slaughtered pigs, 13 were bought by pork vendors and sold to customers, while eight went to 19 meat purchasing agencies and were sold, he said.
Of the other seven pigs, two were bought by a purchasing agent in the city and then sold to downstream buyers in Changhua and Chiayi counties, Tseng said, adding that those were sold to customers, too.
One pig was directly supplied to Chiayi County and sold to customers, while two went to a purchasing agency in Changhua County and were sold to customers, he said.
The remaining two pigs were bought by a meat processing plant in Changhua County and processed into semi-finished pork products, which were sold in New Taipei City, Kaohsiung, Tainan and Taichung, Tseng said, adding that the products in Taichung had already been sold.
Yunlin County Health Bureau Director Tseng Chun-mei (曾春美) said that the bureau found that the processing plant had supplied 3.7 tonnes of pork to Yunlin County, some of which had been turned into products such as pet feed oil, semi-finished pork floss and dried meat.
All those products and the remaining pork were seized and did not enter the market, she added.
Additional reporting by Lee Wen-te
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