Fighting African swine fever would cost up to 12 billion rubles ($426 million) over seven years, said Nikolai Vlasov, deputy chief of the country's food safety watchdog.
The program would include laboratories and incentives to encourage farmers to switch from pig breeding to other livestock, Vlasov said at a news conference Monday. The money would come from federal spending, agency spokesman Alexei Alexeyenko said.
The virus is mostly in Russia's Southern and North Caucasus federal districts. About 17,000 pigs died or were slaughtered this year in Russia because of the disease, on top of 60,000 last year, according to the agency.
(Bloomberg)
