African Swine Fever found in Chinese animal feed
In a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the company said the disease was found in feed samples provided by its subsidiary Bili Meiyingwei Nutrition Feedstuff, as reported by Reuters.
Tangrenshen Group acquired Bili Meiyingwei from Belgian feed maker INVE Belgium in 2016.
According to the statement, the contaminated feed was discovered during inspections after an outbreak of ASF on a farm in Qingyang county located in the eastern province of Anhui.
It said the origin of the disease remained “unclear and the matter was still under investigation”.
Pan Chenjun, senior analyst at Rabobank, said: “I think buyers will be quite worried about purchasing feed from similar subsidiaries. If there’s any contamination, it’s very difficult to control.”
This is the latest incident of ASF to hit China in recent months. In August, 8,000 pigs were found to be infected in China’s Liaoning region. The Chinese Government said it had come in via Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia.
In the same month, producer WH Group confirmed an outbreak of ASF at its Zhengzhou facility while in October the Chinese Government confirmed a case hitting the Southern Province which was the 42nd case recorded in China but the first in the region.
