The Executive Yuan today announced subsidies for pig farmers and other businesses in the pork industry affected by controls put in place due to an outbreak of African swine fever.
The Cabinet approved an industrial support and subsidy program for the hog industry to counter the effects of a 15-day ban on transporting and slaughtering pigs after Taiwan’s first case of African swine fever was detected in Taichung last week.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
The ban greatly impacted pig farmers and related industries and affected the livelihoods of first-tier workers, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said.
Cho has instructed the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs to finish procedures and begin accepting subsidy applications as soon as possible.
The government said applications are expected to open on Monday.
Over the ban period of Oct. 23 to Friday next week, subsidies would be available as follows: NT$810 (US$26.36) per pig for feed costs due to delayed market entry, up to NT$200,000 per meat market, NT$15,000 per live pig wholesaler, NT$280 per head for slaughterhouses and NT$30,000 per traditional market stall, the Cabinet said.
For the 434 hog farms certified for using food waste as feed, subsidies of NT$300 per pig would be provided to cover the difference in feed cost as they transition away from using kitchen waste, the MOA said.
Fuel subsidies would also be available, starting at NT$8,000 for farms with 200 to 500 pigs and up to NT$18,000 for farms with more than 2,000 pigs, it said.
An additional NT$2,500 of compensation would be provided per pig if sows die due to overcrowding caused by mandated movement restrictions, it said.
Those who voluntarily report cases of African swine fever would also receive a NT$5,000 reward per report, it added.
In terms of financial support for the hog industry, first-time borrowers would receive six months of interest subsidies with interest rates capped at 1 percent, while existing borrowers can apply for a six-month payment deferral, during which the government would subsidize up to 1 percent of the interest rate, it said.
Each borrower could receive up to a combined NT$6 million in new and existing loans with no guarantee processing fees during the subsidized period, it added.
Meanwhile, Cho today directed the MOA to establish a centralized task force to assist in completing follow-up epidemiological tracing.
Every second counts in epidemic prevention, he said.
Taiwan has successfully prevented the epidemic from spreading, with measures announced on Sunday to extend the ban on transporting and slaughtering pigs and the use of kitchen waste as pig feed by 10 days, to end on Thursday next week, he said.
Moreover, a second stage of prevention measures were implemented, including tiered farm inspections, strengthened disinfection efforts, precise epidemiological tracing and further expansion of investigations, he said.
The measures were a cross-ministerial effort, he said, calling on the MOA, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of the Interior and local governments to work together to achieve the goal of zero African swine fever cases.
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