ASF: Spanish farmers call for regulatory relief after €63m losses
20th January 2026
Spanish farmers are seeking regulatory relief, as African swine fever has already cost them over €60 million, according to the national farming union.
While a total of 60 cases have now been reported in wild boar in the infected area close to Barcelona since late November, it has not been detected in any of the 57 pig farms located within a 20 km radius of the infected area, despite extensive testing.
Nonetheless, the outbreak has led to movement restrictions for 61,500 pigs, 10% of Barcelona’s pig population, and has had a significant direct impact on exports, especially to China, despite the introduction of various regionalisation agreements, the Unió de Pagesos said.
Spain’s Mercolleida live pig price was already in freefall in the months leading up to the outbreak and has plummeted further since, hitting €1/kg at the start of this year, compared with a high of €1.815/kg in July.
The union has estimated that the Catalan pig sector lost €63 million due to the outbreak up to the end of 2025, with a 17% drop in turnover experienced during November and December.
“What we can’t do is produce at a loss for an extended period,” Rossend Saltiveri, head of the pig farming sector at Unió de Pagesos, said at a press conference in Lleida, the Spanish news outlet ARA reported.
He predicted that the sector will “adapt to market circumstances” by restructuring and reducing production to “avoid prolonged losses”.
Welfare regulation delay
The union has also renewed its calls for new animal welfare regulations due in the coming months to be delayed again.
It obtained a one-year moratorium on the regulations at the beginning of 2025 “in order not to lose productive potential on Catalan farms”.
“Although the extension will end on 9th March, the union has requested the withdrawal of this modification in order not to put further obstacles to the future of the sector,” the union said.
The union has also called for a delay in the introduction of a mandatory computer tool, ECOGAN, designed for farms to communicate the level of their pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions and the techniques they have applied to reduce them.
It said this represents a “new bureaucratic burden for farmers” and has asked that it can replace the regional registers that already do this to avoid duplication.
NPA chief policy adviser Katie Jarvis reported that the chairs of the group asked the Commission in a meeting to delay plans to introduce changes to welfare legislation and to remove the pork sector from the Industrial and Livestock Rearing Emissions Directive (IED), as they did for cattle.
African Swine Fever (ASF) is a highly contagious viral disease of pigs. In its acute form the disease generally results in high mortality. ASF is a different disease from swine flu.
READ MORE: Pig producers warned to prevent and prepare for ASF
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