USDA mandates pork virus reporting

The U.S. Agriculture Department has issued a federal order that mandates reporting instances of the deadly porcine epidemic diarrhea virus and developing infected herd management practices for affected herds.

The order was announced last week at the World Pork Expo by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

"Actions to date, led by producers, swine veterinarians, and the industry organizations, have focused primarily on biosecurity, but have not been fully effective in limiting the spread of the virus," according to the USDA's Herd Monitoring and Management Plan. "Therefore, the federal government, states, herd veterinarians and industry need to make a concerted effort to manage these infections in the United States."

The virus has affected hog operations in 30 states, killing an estimated 8 million animals, according to the National Pork Producers Council. The virus has not been reported in Arkansas, though infections are present in most of the surrounding states.

Dave Warner, spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, said because producers were already voluntarily reporting infections, research funding was the most important part of the order.

"We need to find out how did it get here and how did it transfer farm to farm," he said.

The federal order includes $26.2 million to combat the disease, including $11.1 million to support biosecurity practices in infected herds and $3.9 million for vaccine development. Biosecurity is the protection of agricultural animals from any type of infection.

Joelle Hayden, spokesman for the USDA, said the biosecurity funds will split the cost of implementation between the government and producers. The cost share will be on a sliding scale based on the number of biosecurity actions per month by a producer.

Hayden said the guidelines for infected herd management practices are still being worked on by the USDA and industry partners, but the agency is planning to allow for flexibility.

"Veterinarians working directly with the herds will be able to develop the best plan for that herd," she said. "We're not requiring any particular set of actions."

Arkansas state veterinarian, Pat Badley, said he didn't know the virus would hit Arkansas.

"It's in 30 states now. We're in the minority," he said. "We're also not in a high hog traffic state."

But he said the state had the resources to test for it and is taking precautions with exhibition hogs. When exhibitors buy a hog from out of state, a veterinarian must sign off that the animal hasn't come from a farm that has had the virus in the past 60 days.

Producers also have been taking action, he said.

"The commercial hog farms, the big ones, they're already doing everything they can. They won't bring one down here," he said. "They won't risk it."

Business on 06/10/2014

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