Border fencesDenmark starts building anti-swine border fence

Published 28 January 2019

In a controversial move, Denmark, hoping to stop the crossing of disease-carrying German swine into the hog farming region on Denmark, has begun building a border fence along its 40-mile border with Germany. Denmark says the fence is essential for saving the Danish hog farming industry from collapsing. Denmark is the only European country where pigs outnumber people. The country exports about €4 billion of pork each year.

In a controversial move, Denmark, hoping to stop the crossing of disease-carrying German swine into the hog farming region on Denmark, has begun building a border fence along its 40-mile border with Germany.

Denmark says the fence is essential for saving the Danish hog farming industry from collapsing.

The construction of the 40-mile long fence, which will be 5-feet high and 50 centimeters deep, began Monday.

The project, which is due to be completed by the end of the summer, has been met with criticism from environmentalists, but also from political critics of the government.

Danish tabloid Jyllands Posten reported that the Danish health agencies have also initiated a large-scale, four-day exercise to test the country’s preparedness for the disease.

The Danish government has also beefed up wild boar observation along the border and intensified control of wild boar on public and private land inside Denmark. Fines have been increased various swine-related offenses, including improperly cleaned or disinfected animal transport trucks, and signs have been posted at motorway rest areas warning against throwing away food waste.

“We have 11 billion good reasons to do everything in our power to prevent African swine fever from reaching Denmark,” Danish Environment and Food Minister Jakob Ellemann-Jensen said in a statement, referring to the value of its non-EU pork exports.

The Local reports that Denmark exports about €4 billion of pork each year, about half of it to non-EU countries. The government is worried that if the disease crosses the border, it will have to halt non-European Union exports.

Agricultural association LandboSyd says the disease threatens the livelihood of up to 33,000 people employed in the industry.

Most of Denmark’s pig farms are near the German border, making them susceptible to disease coming from across the border.

Experts note that Denmark is the only EU country where pigs outnumber people.

German lawmakers and health experts criticized the Danish fence, saying the virus is mainly spread by people during the transport of animals, and by infected food.

Jan Philipp Albrecht, the state environment and agriculture minister of Schleswig-Holstein, a German state on the border of Denbark, told regional paper Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag (SHZ) he had substantial doubts about the sense and necessity of a fence between Denmark and the north German state.

The Denmark branch of the World Wildlife Foundation argued that the barrier will disturb wolves, otters, and gold jackals, which are enjoying a resurgence in the region. WWF’s Bo Oksnebjerg told SHZ many animal species would be unable to find the twenty permanent openings in the fence, but that wild boars were perfectly capable of crossing the barrier. “They can run 35 kilometers per hour. They will find a hole within a few minutes.” They are also good swimmers and could thus circumvent the fence.

Local resistance has also formed, with online Facebook groups such as “Vildsvinehegn - nej tak” (wild boar fence - no thanks), formed by a local hunter, saying the fence makes little sense from a technical point of view.

Political analysts linked to efforts by the Danish government to appeal to right-wing voters. Politicians from the right-wing populist Danish People’s Party have previously called for a tall, barbed-wire fence with motion detectors along the German border to counter an influx of migrants. These analysts argue that the Danish government chose the fences as a relatively inexpensive gesture to pacify right-wing critics of the government.

So far, no cases of African swine fever have been reported in Germany, but the Friedrich-Loeffler Institute (the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health) says there is a high chance of the disease arriving.

The disease has already been detected in the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, as well as a few cases in Belgium last autumn.

The disease, which is not dangerous to humans, is almost always fatal in pigs. There is no vaccine or treatment.

The Local notes French health and agriculture agencies are planning a fence to stop the disease spreading from Belgium. The French military has also instructed soldiers stationed near the border with Belgium to help local hunters find and shoot wild boar.