Assam orders culling of 12,000 pigs as African swine fever spreads across 14 districts

On Wednesday, Assam's Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal made a decision that would reshape the state's pig farming landscape: nearly 12,000 animals would be killed in a coordinated culling operation designed to contain African swine fever before the Durga Puja festival. The order came after the virus had already claimed 18,000 pigs across 14 districts of the state, a toll that officials feared would only worsen without aggressive intervention.

Sonowal convened a meeting with officials from the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Department to chart the course forward. The directive was clear and time-bound: the culling had to be completed in compliance with central government guidelines and expert recommendations, all before Durga Puja arrived. The scale of the operation reflected the severity of the outbreak—12,000 animals marked for slaughter represented not just livestock loss but the livelihoods of hundreds of farming families across the state.

The geographic scope of the cull was precisely defined. Officials would target animals within a one-kilometre radius of 30 identified epicentres scattered across the 14 affected districts. This targeted approach aimed to create a containment zone around the virus's hotspots, preventing further spread while minimizing the total number of animals that would need to be destroyed. The operation would begin immediately, officials said.

What distinguished this culling order from a simple eradication mandate was Sonowal's explicit commitment to compensation. He acknowledged that farmers would bear the financial weight of the outbreak and pledged that losses would be "adequately compensated." The mechanism was straightforward: owners of the 12,000 pigs scheduled for culling would receive payment directly into their bank accounts. But the government's responsibility extended further. A separate proposal had been submitted seeking financial support for the farmers who had already lost the 18,000 pigs to the disease—animals that had died before any official intervention could save them.

The timing of the order, with its emphasis on completion before Durga Puja, suggested an awareness of both practical and cultural considerations. The festival, one of the most significant celebrations in the region, would draw crowds and movement across districts. Containing the outbreak before that moment of heightened social activity made epidemiological sense. Yet the order also meant that farmers had a narrow window to comply, to see their animals culled, and to begin the process of rebuilding their operations.

African swine fever, a highly contagious viral disease that spreads rapidly through pig populations, had proven difficult to contain through voluntary measures alone. The state's decision to move toward mandatory culling represented an escalation in response, one that acknowledged both the severity of the outbreak and the limits of less aggressive approaches. For the farmers affected—those who had already lost animals and those whose remaining pigs now faced the same fate—the weeks ahead would determine not just the survival of their herds but their ability to sustain their operations at all.