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Swine disease a concern along with HPAI

Livestock diseases are a concern for Minnesota’s Ag Commissioner.

Thom Petersen tells Brownfield while much attention is deservedly given to highly pathogenic avian flu, swine producers are facing several threats too.

“We talk about PRRS, PEDv, but also African swine fever. We’ve got to keep the ball up in the air on that too because it would be devastating, it’s on island nations near us, one hurricane or whatever somehow getting that to us (is concerning).”

He says Canada has done a good job preventing PEDv, a virus that continues to cause problems in the U.S.

“And one of the reasons we import a lot of iso-weans from Canada, almost 750,000 a year, to help kind of break that disease cycle, is really important. So that gets into the whole trade question that we also are going through.”

Petersen says Canadian imports, including piglets, could be affected if President Trump follows through on tariff threats.