By Madelaine B.Miraflor SAO PAULO, Brazil — Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest pork producer, is ready to supply more pork to the Philippines amid the alleged African Swine Fever (ASF) cases in the Southeast Asian nation, but that’s only at least in the next four months before the anticipated global pork shortage happens. Ricardo Santin, chief executive officer of Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA), said that Brazil is now preparing to increase its pork production to fulfill the expected surge in global demand for pork. At the same time, the country also started to “pray and work hard” so that the deadly swine disease will not reach its borders. “ASF is a big problem for everyone,” Santin said. “There’s not enough meat for this.” The demand, according to him, could reach up to more than 20 million metric tons (MT) of pork for Asia alone. Santin said that for instance, “all the companies now want to increase their export to the Philippines, also in entire Asia, because they are now seeing a change because of ASF.” He also said that although the Philippine government doesn’t want to confirm the alleged ASF cases in the Philippines, pork prices in Asia are now rising “almost every day” and that could be a “symptom” that something is happening and that “a shortage is coming.” “I can’t tell if someone is hiding or not because I trust the countries and the governments, but we saw the figures. We are seeing the prices go up quickly,” Santin told Business Bulletin on the sidelines of the 2019 International Poultry and Pork Industry Show (SIAVS). Moving forward, Brazil is planning to increase its pork exports by 120,000 MT to 150,000 MT throughout the year, which the producers will do by increasing the weight of the pigs before they are sent to slaughterhouses. In 2018, the country exported 646,000 MT of pork meat, with total pork exports totaling to 10.5 million MT since Brazilian companies started selling pork outside of Brazil. The South American country had so far sold pork meats worth US$20 billion globally. From January to July, Brazil's pork exports to the Philippines stood at 2,700 metric tons (MT) valued at US$4 million. As of 2018, Brazil is the top eight exporter of pork products to the Philippines. Right now, an unidentified disease has been killing pigs in some part of the Philippines right now, and the government suspects it’s either “hog cholera or ASF.”