Pests and pestilences including the possibility of bioweapons that threaten living organisms that serve as sources of food

[thorbiorn]

In the thread under Earth Changes called Signs of global crop failures or just normal fluctuations there was

The swine fewer in China could well have been part of the multi-thronged US attack on China, but that is for another thread.

I could not find a thread on the possibility of bioweapons affecting pigs and in a larger perspective the various 2D beings, like plants, birds, animals, fish, insects, mushrooms, etc that contribute to our ability to maintain a presence in 3D STS. In most cases, I imagine it would also be difficult to prove that bioweapons have been used against the food supply of an area. Even if it turns out to be the case, there is no guarantee that unintended consequences might not show up too. The disease or pest might eventually affect the region of origin, or it might change in an unexpected direction. There is also the possibility that a diseases affecting plants, birds, fishes, etc may not have an origin on this planet, or that Nature is reacting in ways we can not fully understand.

To elaborate on the meaning of pests and pestilence there was in the Wiki about pests : "A pest is any animal or plant detrimental to humans or human concerns, including crops, livestock and forestry, among others."
The Merriam Webster explains a pest as:

1: an epidemic disease associated with high mortality specifically : PLAGUE
2: something resembling a pest in destructiveness especially : a plant or animal detrimental to humans or human concerns (such as agriculture or livestock production)

About the word pestilence according to the Wiki, it can be an infection, and it is also sometimes and by some associated with one the four horsemen, the rider of the white horse, in the Revelation. The Wiki explains:

Under another interpretation, the first Horseman is called Pestilence, and is associated with infectious disease and plague. It appears at least as early as 1906, when it is mentioned in the Jewish Encyclopedia.[18] This particular interpretation is common in popular culture references to the Four Horsemen.[19]

The origin of this interpretation is unclear. Some translations of the Bible mention "plague" (e.g. the NIV) or "pestilence" (e.g. the RSV) in connection with the riders in the passage following the introduction of the fourth rider; cf. "They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." (Revelation 6:7-8 NASB). However, it is a matter of debate as to whether this passage refers to the first rider, or to the four riders as a whole.[1]

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, in his 1916 novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (filmed in 1921 and in 1962), provides an early example of this interpretation, writing "The horseman on the white horse was clad in a showy and barbarous attire. ... While his horse continued galloping, he was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence abroad. At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows, containing the germs of all diseases."[20]

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Wikipedia
The Merriam-Webster explains pestilence as: "a contagious or infectious epidemic disease that is virulent and devastating"

Next are some considerations with regard to the African swine fever, which has hit China very hard this year. Below are excerpts from two articles one pessimistic the other optimistic.
From the Irish 'Biggest threat to raising of pigs we've ever seen' - Quarter of all pigs could die of swine fever, scientists warn - Farming Independent

Around a quarter of the world's pigs are expected to die from African swine fever as authorities grapple with a complex disease spreading rapidly in the globalisation era, the World Organisation for Animal Health said.

A sharp reduction in the world's pig population would lead to possible food shortages and high pork prices, and might also cause shortfalls in the many products made from pigs, such as the blood-thinner heparin used in humans, said Mark Schipp, the organisation's president.

The disease's spread in the past year to countries including China, which has half the world's pigs, had inflamed a worldwide crisis, Dr Schipp told reporters at a briefing in Sydney.

"I don't think the species will be lost, but it's the biggest threat to the commercial raising of pigs we've ever seen," he said.
"And it's the biggest threat to any commercial livestock of our generation."

African swine fever, fatal to hogs but no threat to humans, has wiped out pig herds in many Asian countries. Chinese authorities have destroyed about 1.2 million pigs in an effort to contain the disease since August 2018.

The price of pork has nearly doubled from a year ago in China, which produces and consumes two-thirds of the world's pork. China's efforts to buy pork abroad, as well as smaller outbreaks in other countries, are pushing up global prices.

"There are some shortages in some countries, and there's been some substitutions using other sources of protein, which is driving up the prices of other proteins," said Dr Schipp. [...]

From Chinese hog production capacity predicted to recover by 2020

China's hog production capacity should bottom out this year after the outbreaks of African swine fever, forecasting a return to usual pig numbers in 2020.
by The Pig Site Editor
17 October 2019, at 11:48am
Analysts, however, said the time frame appeared ambitious, with African swine fever still spreading in parts of the country and so much of the herd gone.

The year-long pig epidemic has slashed China's pig herd by more than 40 percent, and has pushed prices of the country's favourite meat to record levels.

At a briefing on Thursday, Yang Zhenhai, director of the Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau of China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said inventories at large farms have started to rebound.

"Various supporting policies and market factors have helped boost confidence in (pig) farming significantly, and enthusiasm for production among small and big farmers is further improving," Yang said.

Pig production has recovered rapidly at farms that slaughter more than 5,000 pigs a year, Yang said. Inventories reached 44.46 million animals in September, up 0.6 percent on a month earlier, while sow herds climbed 3.7 percent to 6.10 million head.
Major producing provinces including Henan, Shandong, and Liaoning also saw a considerable pick-up in pig inventories in September from the previous month, he said. And production and sales of pig feed have rebounded strongly, with output of hog feed up 10 percent in September from the previous month.
[...]

Along the same line:
Pig deaths on Chinese/Russia border: African swine fever spreads?

Russian authorities report almost 60 outbreaks in wild and domestic pigs, most within miles of the border with China.

From the US so far only fears of African swine fever:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/16/terrible-pandemic-is-killing-pigs-around-world-us-pork-producers-fear-they-could-be-next/

Oct. 16, 2019 at 8:21 p.m. GMT+2
U.S. authorities have started active preparations in response to the rising threat of an outbreak of African swine fever, the deadly disease that has decimated the Chinese pig population and is spreading across Asia.

The Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service led several functional exercises and drills late last month, working off a scenario of an outbreak of the virus in Mississippi that traveled across state lines before it was discovered. Fourteen states participated in the drill.

“We got everyone involved in terms of state troopers, diagnostic labs, private veterinarians and state officials, trying to figure out where the virus was,” said Dave Pyburn, the senior vice president of science and technology for the National Pork Board. “As far as controlling it here, the closer we can get to that index case [the first identified case in an outbreak], the better we can control it.”

From the World Organisation for Animal Health there is a page on the African Swine Fever

African swine fever: OIE - World Organisation for Animal Health

zoonoses, animal welfare, animal health,food safety,veterinary,animal disease,animal,health,animal production,Bernard Vallat

www.oie.int

There is a map where one can look up the distribution of different animal diseases, and see the situation. https://www.oie.int/wahis_2/public/wahid.php/Diseaseinformation/Diseasedistributionmap? The one below shows the situation this year:


The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation, the World Organization for Animal Health and the European Union have a document with a lot of details about the disease: African swine fever in wild boar ecology and biosecurity

At the moment, the world prices on pork meat have gone up, while the prices in the US and Canada have dropped.
From Quarterly update: The global pig price cycle moves up there was
View attachment 32308
For trends, prices and statistics provided by the EU see:
Animal products and for pigs in particular:
Pigmeat statistics and https://agridata.ec.europa.eu/Reports/Pigmeat_Dashboard.pdf

See also: Pork prices soar as millions of pigs die due to African swine fever
Big farmers might gain economically, and small farmers, including those having free range pigs, may be forced to close down their operations in the name of biosecurity. The same goes for small slaughterhouses:
China to close down small slaughterhouses to control African swine fever

China's agriculture ministry announced today (5 November) that it will reduce the number of small-scale slaughterhouses to better prevent and control African swine fever.

Life in China has become expensive as a result of rising prices:
Inflation in China reached a six-year high due to swine fever

Inflation in China at the end of September reached a six-year high: consumer prices rose 3 percent.

As for the bioweapon theory, here are some suspicions, which I first found in a video in a language that the machine says i Tagal which is spoken in Indonesia and Malaysia by very few people.
One article in Russian describes the history of the African swine fever and mentions its potential as a biological weapon: Не мы первые and the last paragraph of another article from 2013:

African swine fever (ASF) was first identified 100 years ago in the African colonies of Portugal. In 1957 it was discovered in Europe (Portugal), but prevented. After another three years — after pigs from farms near the airport of Lisbon fed scraps from a flight from Angola, the disease returned to the continent and still not defeated. What world experience can be useful to Russia, since 2007, is also struggling with an outbreak?

ASF in Russia

After 30 years, ASF has returned to Russia — this time by land from the vicinity of the Georgian port of Poti. Again, not without rumors about the machinations of the CIA. But it is unlikely the Americans, painstakingly settling trade disputes with the EU before starting negotiations on the establishment of the Atlantic trade zone, was able to "put a pig" such a scale to its old allies in Europe, where Achs are likely to go through Russia.

With the spread of ASF in any country be the most unfavorable areas with a high concentration of pigs in farms of the population and considerable density of wild boar population. If at the beginning of the epidemic in Russia the leading role in the spread of the virus belonged to a wild animal, then, the primacy passed to personal farms. Table "the Leaders of the outbreak" shows that the share of smallholders in regional pork production, the number and intensity of cases of ASF are directly connected. The peasants throw the dead pigs in the next forest belt, where they find and eat wild boars. When the first signs of the disease, the animals are sacrificed, instead of to call the vet, but the affected meat is sold at markets or sold for recycling. Further, the virus spreads in chilled meat or sausage products, as well as on the surfaces of transport and the clothes of the people. There are cases of industrial pig farms. But the history of struggle with Achs in other countries shows that the penetration of viruses on the industrial enterprise is rather the exception. Well protected, but the infected objects, usually units. Potentially the disease can be spread by ticks (Ornithodoros). Fortunately, their range is limited to southern areas of the country, and pigs are not typical media. At the same time, if the virus manages to gain a foothold in the population of ticks, this greatly complicates the task of cleaning the territory from the disease.

And this
https://yandex.ru/turbo?text=https://news-front.info/2018/08/13/nesluchajnye-vspyshki-afrikanskoj-chumy-svinej-v-moldove-ssha-ispytyvaet-biologicheskoe-oruzhie-v-vostochnoj-evrope/ In the Estonian edition of Sputnik a Russian military commentator in August 2018 mentioned the possibility that the US tests bio-weapons in Eastern Europe.

US tests bio-weapons in Eastern Europe
13 Aug 2018
Explorer Sputnik Latvia Alexander Khrolenko accused the US of creating biological weapons to the third world war, which is now being tested in Eastern Europe.

Alexander Khrolenko cited alarming statistics on the Baltic States. So, in June 2018. in Latvia African swine fever (ASF) were detected in 165 specimens, and in Lithuania was recorded 41 cases of infection. Farmers had to destroy thousands of animals brought to farms large losses notes iz.ru.

Except the Baltic States, multiple outbreaks of ASF were recorded in Ukraine, Moldova, Poland and Georgia.
So, in Moldova the disease were recorded in the district Anenii Noi, in the village Ursoaia Causeni district, in the village of Palanka district Stefan-Voda, on the territory of the Gagauz autonomy in Besghioz in vulcăneşti; in addition, 3 cases of ASF were recorded in the wild boar population.

African swine fever, excesses in the countries of Eastern Europe, looks for words Khrolenko, paradoxically, as the virus is usually not sustainable in the conditions of Northern latitudes. In this contest, the journalist notes, and extension of the Pentagon network of biological laboratories in Eastern Europe. What do Americans in laboratories is unknown. The state, on whose territory is located the laboratories, are not informed about results of activity of researchers. In addition, alarming according to the journalist, is the fact that some countries of the CIS and Baltic countries switching to American standards of epidemiological surveillance, which makes them accountable to Washington.

That the disease can not exist in Northern latitudes is not confirmed by the evidence at the moment. I don't know what the situation was in the past, but in the literature, here they the virus survives outside an infected host much better extending even to years in cold temperatures, say 5 degrees Celsius than in warm weather. It is hard to prove the claims made above, regarding the agency of the US. However, even if it was an intended spread there are other possible distributers than anyone affiliated with the US, they can be both human and non-human. There is also the possibility that accusations of bioweapons used against the food supply will surface, but only as distractions and to channel the emotions of people and select politicians.