Nigeria is stepping up efforts to contain African Swine Fever (ASF) in one of the country’s major pig-producing areas, with the Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project (L-PRES) launching a disease-control and biosecurity campaign at the Oke-Aro Pig Farm Estate on the Lagos-Ogun axis.
The intervention comes weeks after reports of an ASF outbreak around the Ikangba/Agoro area of Ogun State raised concerns over losses among pig farmers and the potential for the disease to disrupt one of the state’s important livestock clusters. Veterinary experts had called for rapid disease confirmation, case mapping, containment and farm-by-farm epidemiological investigations.
At Oke-Aro, L-PRES distributed biosecurity and disease-control kits to farmers as part of a broader effort to reduce transmission. The materials include personal protective equipment, boots, knapsack and motorised sprayers, gloves, nose masks, protective goggles, CID 20 and Virocid disinfectants.
L-PRES National Project Coordinator Dr Sanusi Abubakar said the intervention was particularly important because Oke-Aro is one of Nigeria’s major pig production clusters and has experienced severe African Swine Fever outbreaks in the past, resulting in significant losses of pigs and farmers’ investments.
The campaign will also include training farmers on practical biosecurity measures, including proper farm disinfection, correct use of protective equipment, movement control and farm hygiene. Farmers are being encouraged to control the movement of people, pigs, vehicles and equipment between farms because the virus can spread rapidly where biosecurity is weak.
African Swine Fever does not infect humans, but its impact on pig production can be severe. There is currently no widely available commercial vaccine providing effective protection against the disease, making prevention, early detection, movement control and farm-level biosecurity central to managing outbreaks.
The economic stakes are significant for Ogun’s pig industry. During the September outbreak reports, farmers around the Ikangba/Agoro axis were reported to have suffered substantial losses, with some abandoning their operations. The reported decline in live-pig prices in affected areas also highlighted how disease outbreaks can quickly move beyond animal mortality to disrupt markets and farmer incomes.
The Oke-Aro intervention also comes alongside another L-PRES investment in Ogun’s animal-health infrastructure. On October 1, the project handed over a newly commissioned Animal Resting and Quarantine Facility in Imeko-Afon to the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service. The facility is designed to allow livestock in transit to rest, undergo veterinary inspection and, where necessary, be examined or quarantined before continuing their journey. It also includes digital systems for recording livestock movements and monitoring the facility.
Together, the two interventions point to a broader shift from responding to livestock disease after outbreaks occur toward building preventive systems around production clusters and livestock movement corridors.
For pig farmers, however, the effectiveness of the campaign will ultimately depend on what happens after the launch. Continuous surveillance, farmer awareness, access to disinfectants, rapid reporting of suspected cases and effective enforcement of movement controls will determine whether the intervention can reduce recurring outbreaks.
NBF Insight
African Swine Fever exposes one of the biggest vulnerabilities in Nigeria’s livestock economy: a disease outbreak can destroy productive assets faster than farmers can rebuild them.
Oke-Aro demonstrates why biosecurity should be treated as production infrastructure, not an emergency expense. For a commercial pig cluster, preventing the movement of infection can be as important as improving feed, genetics or housing.
The wider lesson for Nigeria is that livestock expansion needs to be accompanied by equally serious investment in surveillance, quarantine, veterinary services and farm-level disease management. Without that layer of protection, increases in animal numbers can also increase the economic consequences of the next outbreak.
