Local Pig Producers React to Swine Flu
Many of you may be avoiding putting pork on the dinner table because of questions about the swine flu. Forty confirmed cases are now in the United States but none in Tennessee. Health officials are trying to calm fears and so are pig farmers like Bill Keener. "We have a small isolated group of pigs and actually we have our own breeding stock" says Keener. His Sequatchie Cove Farm nests on some sixty acres buried back in the mountains but he knows what flu fears can do to the rest of the pork industry. "Probably hysteria. People aren't going to go to the CDC website and read it and say ok this is what it is and I don't have it."
The outbreak likely originated he says in poverty-stricken places where pigs and people practically live together. Nothing like the open-air barns here, where Keener can tell when even one of his sows is sick. "It might be sneezing, sort of coughing and some mucas discharge and I would know that." And while you can't catch the swine flu from eating pork, Keener says still some people are skeptical. So if the public reaction is anything like it was after the mad cow disease he may soon be selling more pig meat. "It raises awareness. People say where does my pork come from? And then if they find a local farmer they might want to come see how pigs are raised." To further cut down the risk of disease the pigs don't live in the same place very long. Every few months they are moved to a different part of the pasture. That kills any harmful parasites left living in the ground.
He actually welcomes the chance to show off his farm and the health precautions put into operating it everyday, because what looks like just another lazy day on the farm to some actually takes a lot of work by others. "They've got the good life," Keener adds.
