The decision to abandon the maintenance of pigs in 2018 was made by the owners of 79 farms and peasant farms of the Leningrad region.

The livestock breeders were prompted by the spread of the African swine fever virus throughout Russia and the world, which killed millions of pigs on the planet. As a result, as part of a project to prevent the spread of the virus dangerous for pigs, farmers in the Leningrad Region decided to focus on breeding rabbits, as well as sheep and goats. Of course, the retraining of farms required a number of significant financial costs, but the government of the Russian Federation did not leave the livestock breeders without material assistance.

As a result of subsidies, ex-pig farmers received about 6 million rubles from the state. Despite the fact that farmers who decided to abandon the cultivation of pigs sold more than a thousand pigs, this did not affect the regional production of pork meat and products from it.

However, one should not assume that the region is on the verge of completely abandoning pig farming. And here it will not be amiss to note that today in the Leningrad Region there has been a tendency to erect and innovatively equip new farms and complexes of an industrial scale for raising pigs and producing pork and products from it.

According to investors, these facilities are reliably protected from possible attacks of the region by the African swine fever virus. It is noteworthy that the project for the prevention of this virus in the Leningrad region has been extended to 2019, while maintaining the previous funding levels.