FRESH from his latest visit to China, Paul Hyslop paints a bleak picture of a country befouled by African Swine Fever.
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"It's a lot worse than you think, we're not really getting the full story," he said.
Much of the breeding stock of China's huge pig industry - pork consitutes 70 per cent of China's protein intake - is dead.
Mr Hyslop's New Zealand-based company, Zoono, is listed on the Australian stock exchange and is making headway with a disinfectant spray that kills the disease.
For six months the Zoono Group has been working with Chinese authorities to determine its effectiveness against the disease and it has passed with flying colours.
Before the latest discovery, the company had been working with chicken producers, its spray also kills bird flu, and getting really good results.
"We found we were getting better meat conversions, the chickens were't having to expend energy fighing bacteria and were putting on weight faster," said Mr Hyslop.
"That's when we wondered if it would be as effective against African swine fever," he said.
"And it is."
The last six months of trials were performed in a European laboratory.
"We set up pens with and without ASF, treated some with our spray and no pigs contracted ASF in the pens that had been sprayed," said Mr Hyslop.
The company is currently building biosecurity protocols around its product.
The inside of sheds are being sprayed, people and vehicles that leave farms.
Investors are pleased - the company's share price increased 195 per cent this year, topping at 50 cents in December.
Australia's exclusive distributor of the product, Apiam, is now trialling the product in dairies in the Riverina and studying production gains in calves.
Apiam employs about 150 vets in rural Australia and was formed in December 2015, an aggregation of large veterinary practices.
Apiam managing director Chris Richards said the data coming out of the trials was very positive.
At the moment the company is focused on biosecurity for dairy cows and pigs.
A group of leaders in the Chinese agribusiness/veterinarian and animal feed sector have agreed to jointly collaborate and form a new entity to act as Zoono's exclusive distributor for the animal health and agribusiness sector in China.
Zoono has licensed the distribution company, Zoono China International Trading Limited, to use its name and sell Zoono products to farmers, food producers and processors in China.
The new agreement for animal health and agribusiness in China is another step in the strategy embarked on about 12 months ago by the Zoono board to revitalise the company's global distribution strategy, primarily to achieve greater control of its distribution arrangements.
