(NAFB) – The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have developed a protocol regarding African Swine Fever and bilateral trade.

The Hagstrom Report says the protocol will ensure bilateral trade will keep going if African Swine Fever shows up in feral swine in either country while staying out of the domestic swine herds. If ASF is detected in feral swine, all trade between the two nations would immediately halt. Then, the protocol says trading would resume in three stages with increasingly reduced restrictions on live swine, swine germplasm, and untreated swine commodities.

“Continuing trade with Canada in the event of a feral African Swine Fever detection is important to our stakeholders, and this protocol provides the necessary guidance to minimize the impact to the swine industry,” says USDA Chief Veterinarian Burke Healy.

How quickly the U.S. and Canada establish initial control areas, initiate surveillance/case findings, remove feral swine, and start surveillance of captive swine, will then determine when it’s time to go to phase two of the protocol. Trade restrictions then reduce to the boundaries of the established control areas during the third phase.