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A pair of Western Australian farmers will spend time behind bars after they were found guilty of illegally importing Danish pig semen concealed in shampoo bottles.
GD Pork managing director Torben Soerensen was given a three year jail sentence for breaching quarantine and biosecurity laws, while the production manager Henning Laue was sentenced to two years behind bars.
Details of the multi-year racket were revealed at yesterday’s sentencing in the Perth District court.
Soerensen and Laue organised for the boar semen to be collected and imported via passenger luggage multiple times between May 2009 and March 2017.
The luggage reportedly belonged to the company’s Danish directors.
The semen was used in GD Pork’s artificial insemination program. It’s estimated that the smuggled semen was used to inseminate upwards of 195 sows, producing more than 2000 piglets.
“This case shows a disturbing disregard for the laws that protect the livelihoods of Australia’s 2,700 pork producers, and the quality of the pork that millions of Australians enjoy each year,” Federal agriculture minister Bridget McKenzie said.
“GD Pork imported the semen illegally in an attempt to get an unfair advantage over its competitors, through new genetics.”
As part of the sentencing, GD Pork was also fined $500,000, however the company is already in liquidation.
The case has been under investigation for over two years with authorities being tipped off about the scheme running out of a Pinjarra breeding facility.
Danish pigs produce, on average, seven more piglets a year than Australian pigs which is why GD Pork directors introduced the foreign semen.
Australia enforces strict biosecurity laws around pig herds to limit the risk of pig plague, or porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).
PRRS devastated the US pork industry when it swept through the country in the 1980s and again in Europe in the 1990s - as such it has not been detected in Australia.
Symptoms of the viral disease include infertility, stillborn piglets, and pneumonia.
"These producers’ actions openly flouted Australia’s strict biosecurity laws and had the potential to damage Australia’s $5.3 billion pork industry, as well as the livelihoods of more than 2,500 Australian pig farmers and 36,000 supply chain workers," Australian Pork Limited chief executive, Margo Andrae said in a statement.
“More critically, if foot and mouth disease was to get into the country, it would be catastrophic for Australia’s broader livestock production system with an estimated economic cost of $50 billion over 10 years."
Soerensen will be eligible for release after 18 months good behaviour, and Laue after eight months.
