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EMN Dimapur, July 28
[dropcap]A[/dropcap] daylong awareness event on swine fever was held on Wednesday at the NU-SASRD auditorium in Medziphema. Director of National Research Centre on Pig Dr. DK Sharma was the chief guest of the event. Addressing the gathering, Dr. Sharma expressed happiness to know about the farmers’ keenness to learn on pig disease. He said the AICRP centre, is established all over India; there are centers in Nagaland and Mizoram centre started in 2008-2009, Arunachal and Tripura is yet to be set up. Among the livestock, piggery is most successful as pigs give birth to large number of young ones at a single birth, bringing in huge amount of cash, the chief guest said. The constraint in piggery farming, according to Dr. Sharma, is that 70% of pig growers are from the people living below poverty line, faced with diseases, nutritional deficiency leading to low growth and high pig mortality. The explanation he placed was this: “Now the question we need to ask is how to boost up and improve these 70% group of pig growers. It is a team work and we have to adopt Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode and work on the scientific managements like good housing, feeding and proper diseases preventions. The government on the other side should set up nucleus pig farm with regular preventive measures and vaccination, supply good healthy piglets to farmers. If we can prevent Classical swine fever, 50% of the pig disease problem is solved.” Another topic he broached was that of classical swine fever. Classical swine fever is a contagious infection among the pig population but is not zoonotic in nature, he said. “In case some infected pigs are cure they are the carrier that spread the disease, so it is advisable to cull them to prevent further spread of the disease. Pig by nature cannot tolerate heat, as our environmental climate is changing so fast we have to work out strategically incorporating tree plantation and other suitable farming components.” Minimizing the use of antibiotics and focus on herbals medicine was his advice. He called upon all those present to plan and work for the benefit of piggery and pig research works. Dean of SASRD Prof. Aleminla Ao also spoke during the event. She acknowledged the department of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry for the support and active participation during the Agri Expo 2012. She called upon the farmers to be attentive, speak out their field hurdle and gain technical knowledge free of cost. District Veterinary Officer of Kohima Dr. Keduzol Ltu also spoke saying that classical swine fever is a devastating disease effecting pigs, causing huge loss to dedicated pig farmers. The dept. of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry supplies swine fever vaccines to all district headquarters, he said. Farmers must avail the free vaccines and protect their pigs against swine fever, he said. Appreciating the farmers outreach activities of AICRP-Pig in particular and SASRD Nagaland University in general, he assured technical support of the department for similar kinds of awareness and motivational programs. Further, Dr. M Catherine Rutsa, in-charge of AICRP-Pig, NU-SASRD addressed the gathering saying that the population of pigs in Nagaland is about 6.97 lakhs out of which mortality caused by classical swine fever throughout the state is about 70,000 pigs leading to an economic loss of Rs. 7 crores per year. Swine fever is preventable and can be control by timely vaccinating the pigs spending Rs. 20-25/- per pig. She also said the department of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry, Nagaland Empowerment of People through Economic Development, Indian Council of Agricultural Research in Jharnapani, All India Coordinated Research Project on Pig and other developmental organizations are playing supportive roles to prevent and control of classical swine fever in particular and other economic swine diseases in general.