Serious ramifications | Foot-and-mouth disease an ‘economic shock’
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Many countries have high level biosecurity and top notch veterinary services, but they can still get foot-and-mouth disease.
The United States was warned in 2001 that it would have the disease within five years. It didn’t happen, but the risk remains that a serious foreign animal disease could enter the country, either by mistake, illegal movement of products or by a bioterrorist, said Patrick Webb, who manages emergency planning for the National Pork Board in the United States.
“In our industry, we consider it a low probability but a high consequence,” he said in an interview during an FMD forum held at the National Institute for Animal Agriculture conference in Louisville April 15-18.
Read Also
Beef check-off collection system aligns across the country
A single and aligned check-off collection system based on where producers live makes the system equal said Chad Ross, Saskatchewan Cattle Association chair.
A University of Kansas study on the economic impacts of disease for that state estimated all industries would be adversely affected, from livestock to banking to entertainment.
The Kansas model figures 1.2 million animals would be destroyed in a 14 county region that has one of the most dense cattle populations in the U.S.
About one billion pounds of beef and 81 million lb. of pork would be lost to the market, said Gay Miller of the University of Illinois’s faculty of veterinary medicine, who has also worked on disease control and prevention and foreign animal disease emergency preparedness.
“We know we have epidemiologically naive populations around this country,” she said.
“Our ag vulnerability is high, and our biosecurity varies tremendously around different farms and across the industry. It could contribute to the FMD problem.”
Economic impact models calculate impacts of the disease, but Miller warned they are wrong as often as they are correct.
Nevertheless, the experiences of other countries shows that the devastation to the rural community and national economy is clear.
Further, no one is ever sure how trading partners may react.
“We don’t know what the trade barriers will be, but likely they will be severe,” she said.
Jon Zack of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said the U.S. has strict rules in doing business with countries that have had FMD, and it should expect the same treatment.
“How we treat other countries is how we would expect to be treated ourselves,” said Zack.
There are products that would not need to be restricted in the international market, but many countries would say no, regardless.
“A lot of trade is not science based,” he said.
Sebastian Heath, head of program development for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said economic losses were great and destroyed people’s livelihoods when the disease pummeled England in 2001.
Economists tend to look at the disease in terms of transaction costs, indirect costs, lost revenue, marginal costs and opportunity costs.
“Foot-and-mouth disease is really an economic shock to the system,” he said.
In England, no one expected the extensive losses to tourism. People decided to stay away, and hotels went bankrupt.
However, disasters eventually end and recovery begins.
“Things do turn around and sometimes disasters become something of an economic stimulus,” he said.
