Since African swine fever is a reportable disease, when a case is reported, the borders are closed to export. Since we export a lot, that means we have to euthanize our healthy animals.
The fact that ASF is classified as a reportable disease puts us in quite an unusual situation globally. Diseases are classified in that category because they have a significant, even dramatic, social and economic impact, but here it's the fact that it's considered a reportable disease that amplifies the economic and social impact on our country because we export a lot.
I have two recommendations to address that. First, we must have effective zoning and compartmentalization agreements, somewhat like those of the Europeans. We met with the Danish about six months ago. They're exporters, but they never consider euthanizing healthy animals, simply because they have agreements that are based on European treaties. Under those agreements, if one case is reported from one day to the next, once they've circumscribed the zone, they can continue exporting to other European countries. This is similar to the principle of communicating vessels. However, it's not at all what we have in North America under our free trade agreement with United States and Mexico.
Second, we could consider removing African swine fever from the list of reportable diseases. However, I think that would be hard to negotiate internationally.