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Harvest Public Media is a reporting collaboration focused on issues of food, fuel and field. Based at KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri, Harvest covers agriculture-related topics through a network of reporters and partner stations throughout the Midwest.

2019 World Pork Expo Canceled Due To Ongoing African Swine Fever Outbreak

The 2019 World Pork Expo has been canceled. This photo is from the 2018 event in Des Moines, Iowa.
Amy Mayer
/
Harvest Public Media file photo
The 2019 World Pork Expo has been canceled. This photo is from the 2018 event in Des Moines, Iowa.

Fears of a highly contagious and deadly pig disease have prompted officials to cancel the World Pork Expo in Iowa this June.

African swine fever has been spreading through China since August, and also is present in Europe and its namesake continent.

The National Pork Producers Council, which hosts the annual event in Des Moines, announced this week it would not be held this year because of the threat of a U.S. outbreak. It would be costly to the nation’s pork industry because export markets that farmers depend on would immediately close and many pigs would die.

However, Jim Monroe, spokesperson for the National Pork Producers Council, said it’s not likely the virus would arrive because of people at the World Pork Expo.

“We think that’s (a) very, very remote possibility,” he said. “We can’t say it’s zero. So, we decided to exercise extreme caution and cancel the event his year.”

Typically, 20,000 people from 40 countries visit Des Moines for the expo, which was supposed to be held June 5-7 this year.

Trina Flack with Catch Des Moines, the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the city’s tourism industry will lose about about $6.3 million this year.

“But we’re fully supportive of National Pork Producers’ decision and understand the spot that they were in,” Flack said. “So, it’s bigger than one week of tourism.”

Flack added that a swine show that’s held at the same time will still go on and the 2020 World Pork Expo is expected to be held as planned.

African swine fever has been found in Vietnam and South Africa and is now in nearly every region of mainland China. It’s also in Romania, Russia and Belgium, among other European countries. It is not present in North America.

This story has been corrected to show that Flack works with Catch Des Moines, not the Greater Des Moines Partnership.

Follow Amy on Twitter: @AgAmyinAmes

Copyright 2019 Harvest Public Media

Amy Mayer is a reporter based in Ames. She covers agriculture and is part of the Harvest Public Media collaboration. Amy worked as an independent producer for many years and also previously had stints as weekend news host and reporter at WFCR in Amherst, Massachusetts and as a reporter and host/producer of a weekly call-in health show at KUAC in Fairbanks, Alaska. Amy’s work has earned awards from SPJ, the Alaska Press Club and the Massachusetts/Rhode Island AP. Her stories have aired on NPR news programs such as Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition and on Only A Game, Marketplace and Living on Earth. She produced the 2011 documentary Peace Corps Voices, which aired in over 160 communities across the country and has written for The New York Times, Boston Globe, Real Simple and other print outlets. Amy served on the board of directors of the Association of Independents in Radio from 2008-2015.