ROME, Italy – Creating a “fortress North America” to keep foot-and-mouth disease away from the continental herd is a good short-term strategy but not a long-term solution, says Samuel Jutzi, head of animal protection policies for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Since foot-and-mouth spread to Western Europe and South America this year, Canada and the United States have launched stringent border protection measures to keep the disease out.
Jutzi said in a Nov. 6 interview that is simply a temporary solution.
“It is a good strategy to protect the domestic market and also the international market,” he said after an FAO meeting on foot-and-mouth.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
But the longer we go, the less viable it is.”
The longer-term solution is to both protect domestic herds and help eradicate the disease at its chronic source – animal herds in tropical and semi-tropical countries.
FAO director general Jacques Diouf suggested a campaign “to develop a global plan to contain and progressively control the disease threat at source in developing countries.”
There are official hints that the FAO may be asked to take a leadership role in co-ordinating an international anti-FMD campaign.
Meanwhile, there is a growing argument in Europe and within the FAO that traditional ways of dealing with a disease outbreak should change.
At a European summit on FMD to be held in Brussels in December, there will be debate over whether vaccination is a better option than mass slaughter.
Vaccination has been all-but-banned in the EU for a decade and is not allowed in North America.
The traditional reaction to an FMD outbreak in developed countries is mass slaughter of infected or potentially exposed animals.
In the United Kingdom this year, there were 2,030 confirmed cases, but in the end close to four million animals were slaughtered for being potentially exposed to the virus.
Vaccination is not allowed because vaccinated cattle cannot be differentiated from infected cattle and are not allowed in international trade.
But John de Leeuw, director general of the Dutch agriculture ministry, told the conference that researchers are producing a vaccine and test that can separate vaccinated cattle from infected cattle.
He said once perfected, vaccinated cattle should be allowed into the trade system and mass slaughter should stop.
“We have to reconsider our policies and eradication strategies, not only in Europe but also worldwide.”
A delegate from Senegal noted that in developing countries, vaccination is the only option since farmers and the country cannot afford to lose large parts of their herd. Yet vaccinations keep their cattle out of the international market.
“We can’t afford to slaughter cattle as is done in developed countries,” he said.
“So we vaccinate, but that also is very expensive and must be subsidized.”
Underlying the debate was a fear that for the moment, the disease has momentum, spreading into temperate zones this year but remaining endemic in hotter countries.
Delegates watched an electronic map created to show the spread of strains of the disease during the past decade. Red dots started in Asia, spread across the Middle East into large parts of Africa, and then made an appearance in Europe and parts of South America.
But the concentration remains in tropical and semi-tropical developing countries. The consequences are continued poverty and exclusion from growing world trade.
“There is a disturbing north-south dimension in the FMD distribution,” Jutzi told delegates. A map showing its presence or absence “has the look of a map of world poverty.”
Diouf said it is in the world’s interest to invest in helping developing countries eliminate the disease.
