President Trump Signs Bill to Protect U.S. Against ASF

March 9, 2020 | Volume 101

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President Trump Signs Bill to Protect U.S. Against ASF

President Donald Trump signed legislation on Tuesday to protect the U.S. pork industry from the threat of the deadly African swine fever (ASF) virus through expanded agricultural inspections.

S. 2107, the “Protecting America’s Food and Agriculture Act of 2019,” authorizes the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to hire additional agricultural specialists, agricultural technicians and canine inspection teams to improve the security of the nation’s food supply.

"Ensuring we have enough agricultural inspectors at our borders is critical to maintaining a healthy U.S. swine herd," said National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) President David Herring, a hog farmer from Lillington, N.C., in a release. "The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have done much to mitigate the risk to animal disease. Bolstered by this legislation, even more resources will be available to strengthen biosecurity at our borders. This is a victory for farmers, consumers and the American economy."

In the News

Evers Announces Grant to Support Ag Exports

Gov. Tony Evers today announced a $4.9 million Harbor Assistance Program grant to support the construction of a new agricultural commodity bulk vessel transload facility at Port Milwaukee. The $31.3 million facility, the first of its kind on the Great Lakes, is being constructed at the port by the DeLong Company.

The transload facility will initially export dried distillers grain, an animal feed supplement that is a byproduct of Wisconsin’s ethanol industry. The terminal also will be able to handle other bulk grains such as soybeans, corn and wheat in the future.

Protecting Agriculture, Resources from Pests & Diseases

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is allocating almost $70 million to support 386 projects under the Plant Protection Act’s Section 7721 (PPA 7721) program to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure for pest detection and surveillance, identification, threat mitigation, to safeguard the nursery production system and to respond to plant pest emergencies. Selected projects will be carried out by universities, states, federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations, nonprofits, and Tribal organizations in 48 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

Wisconsin Begins COVID-19 Testing

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are now conducting tests for the COVID-19 virus. COVID-19 is the novel coronavirus that surfaced in late 2019 in Wuhan, China. It has infected people around the world, including more than a dozen people in the United States and one person in Wisconsin as of March 2. The Milwaukee Health Department laboratory also has the capability to perform the test. Test samples previously were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Positive test results identified by the State Lab and the Milwaukee Health Department lab will be presumed positive and sent to the CDC for confirmation.