SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Five days af­ter his en­tire herd of pigs was culled and buried due to an out­break of Porcine Re­pro­duc­tive and Res­pi­ra­to­ry Syn­drome (PRRS), Waller­field farmer Bri­an Ma­turine says he is still wait­ing on word from the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture about com­pen­sa­tion to restart his busi­ness.

On Wednes­day, more than 250 pigs, val­ued at $700,000, were de­stroyed by the min­istry to pre­vent the high­ly con­ta­gious dis­ease from spread­ing to oth­er farms. The pigs test­ed pos­i­tive on Ju­ly 21, and the farm was im­me­di­ate­ly des­ig­nat­ed an in­fect­ed zone. Dis­pos­al of the an­i­mals was car­ried out at a se­cure lo­ca­tion un­der strict biose­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols.