Wall Street Journal - Essay Example

15th April Craig Rowles, United s Pork Prices Rise 10% After Virus Kills Millions of Piglets: Associated Press in Milwaukee, Tuesday 8 April 2014.  Due to a virus that has affected millions of piglets in United States the prices of pork have increased by 10% after the virus attack. Millions of baby pigs have died and thus in the market the numbers of the pigs has been reduced thus making pork prices to increase. The virus has never been seen in United States and millions of baby pigs have died in less than a year.

The funny thing about the virus is that scientists are not aware of how the virus is spreading and how the virus can be stopped. If the current trend continues, then pork production in United States seems to be a challenge to the farmers since in the next two months all pigs will be swiped by the virus thus making the prices of pork to increase drastically. Department of agriculture and economist estimated that more than 6 million piglets in 27 states have already died due to porcine epidemic diarrhea.

The virus is an air bone disease since it is spreading from one state to the next killing the piglets. The department of agriculture has estimated that 3% shrunk to about 63million pigs for half a year. The virus does not affect human being and other animals, the disease is thought to have emanated from China but how the virus entered the United States is not known up to date and thus the scientists working harder to know the cause of the virus and how it can be controlled. The federal government has so far used more than $1.

7 million to research about the virus but this seems even to consume more since they do not have the idea on how to prevent the virus in future and current conditions. United States is well known as the top producer of pork that is of high quality and still it is a major exporter of the products. This seems as if there will be no pig export if the virus spread in such a manner. For example, currently the production has declined and 7% reduction is being experienced in the states. The kind of pork decline was experienced in many years back and the situation is worrying the pig farmers (Kendall, 25).

The prices have shot up and currently bacon is being sold at an average price of $5.46. The prices of Ham and Chops still have increased since the virus is making it hard to rear other piglets. One of the pork farmers Craig Rowles came with an idea to prevent the virus and thus trained the workers. Craig thought the virus was spreading due to poor conditions and thus instructing the workers to shower and change clothing before attending the pigs and restriction of the visitors was encouraged.

Despite all the efforts to curb the spread of the virus, no positive result was achieved and more 13, 000 animals died despite the effort. The symptoms of the virus is that the pigs diarrhea and thus making it hard for the piglets to survive and especially those who are newborn since they dehydrate quickly. The situation is getting worse and the workers are being shocked thus even refusing to go and work. The virus is thriving in cold areas and since United States has been experiencing cold weather since December, the virus has a well environment to survive and thus spreading more to other parts of United States.

The state that has been mostly affected is Midwest where the first symptom of the virus was spotted and a report was indicated to the department of agriculture to try and curb the virus but was impossible. Again the largest producer states like Minnesota, North Carolina, and Illinois are also affected and the production of pork is produced in large quantity for export. The virus has also been reported in Canada and Mexico which is making the farmers to experience loss in pig farming. Scientist are working harder to come up with the vaccine but the federal government has not yet approved it thus causing loss to the farmers who entirely depend on pig farming in United States.

The consumers are the one to be mostly affected since the prices are increasing as time goes thus making it hard to be able to buy pork and on the other hand the farmers experiencing loss due to death of pigs. Works Cited Kendall, M. Pigs, Profits, and Rural Communities. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013. Print