Barbados steps up swine fever defence

Barbados is stepping up efforts to protect its agriculture sector from animal health and biosecurity threats, particularly African Swine Fever (ASF), in the face of warning about the possibility of breaches.

Regional officials has warned that the risk of the disease breaching the island’s borders remains real despite the country’s clean record to date.

Agricultural stakeholders are gathered at the Hilton Barbados resort at Needhams Point, St Michael, for the start of a three-day ASF surveillance and response workshop, organised by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.