Ministry of Agriculture Announces Livestock Health Plan

He considered that the export of beef, Newcastle elimination and eradication of African swine fever, are the three most important health policy of President Danilo Medina.

He said the agriculture sector has been issued an 18 to 24 month timetable to reach free status from the virus Newcastle disease, which causes high mortality in chickens.

Rodriguez also explained the government is striving to eradicate African swine fever, brucellosis and tuberculosis. He said that the elimination of these diseases will be a huge achievement and one of huge importance for the agricultural sector.

Veterinary authorities have announced that U.S. health inspectors will be visiting the country shortly to monitor cattle. Soon Dominican farmers hope to be exporting produce to the states.

The Minister of Agriculture said that meat and egg producers may benefit from foreign markets and escaping local constraints.

"This will give us the opportunity to access much larger markets and dynamic, and instead of producing 14 billion chickens and 125 million eggs a month, we will produce 24 million chickens and 150 eggs," said Rodriguez in a meeting with the Dominican Association of Landowners and Farmers (ADHA), in La Gina, Yamasá.

The schemes are accompanied by Radhames Rodriguez Valenzuela, director of the Dominican Agrarian Institute (IAD); Olgo Fernandez, National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (Indrhi), and Rafael Perez Duvergé, Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Research (IDIAF).