The more you learn about viral and bacterial threats to livestock, the more you wonder how we can effectively protect the sector.
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When preparing for a recent presentation, I looked up pandemics that have happened since 1960. I was shocked to discover there have been eight pandemics in my lifetime. It seems to be true that you only really pay attention to that which affects you.
Three big disease events have affected me. The first was Foot and Mouth Disease in the U.K. in 2000 when I was working with Beef Farmers of Ontario. I feared that one day, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would call saying it had found FMD in Ontario and needed to know the locations of all beef cattle in Ontario so it could stamp it out.
The simple answer at the time was “I don’t know. In fact, no one knows.”
That was not a good answer, but efforts to change it voluntarily with cattle buyers and through the Beef Cattle Marketing Act were met with disinterest at best. Fortunately, we have not yet found FMD.
The second disease event affecting me was Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in 2003. In this case, it was very real for Canadian farmers. The main impact of BSE was on the market as we were then, and continue to be, exporting over 50 per cent of our production. When borders to trade slam shut, it is a big problem.
It was a terrible time for everyone in the beef industry, as well as other sectors such as sheep and dairy. There was huge effort by farmers, producer groups and government to get the industry through that terrible time.
Sadly, not all livestock businesses made it through and those that did faced a long recovery period.
The most recent disease affecting me was different because, in that case, I was one of the animals. COVID-19 has affected every person and every country. Millions have died and there have been far-reaching additional impacts.
Early in the pandemic, I recall an expert being asked “how will we know when it is over?”
His reply, “it will be over when we say it is,” seemed bizarre and yet that is exactly how it played out. COVID-19 is still with us, and I wonder if it will ever really be over.
Maybe we need to view big disease events as waves rather than singular events. So, if we know the next wave is coming, how prepared are we?
I asked several people who work closely with disease preparedness in industry, academia and government to answer that question using a scale of one (not prepared) to 10 (very prepared). Their average score was five with comments that it depends on which sector is affected, and which disease is affecting it.
No matter how you cut it, five is not good enough.
The experts highlighted recent positive developments in our disease readiness including:
However, we need far better surveillance to know as early as possible when a disease outbreak is imminent or happening, better biosecurity on all farms across all sectors, and better information sharing across organizations and agencies.
That’s a lot to accomplish but I suggest five more critical elements for success. We need to:
We should never pretend that things are better than they are, and we need to always seek improvement.
Ontario’s livestock sector is a key pillar of the province’s economy, environment and food security. We need to make every effort to ensure its protection and growth.
We may never be truly ready for the next wave of livestock disease, but working together to do our best to improve where we are now is key to securing a bright future.
Source: Farmtario.com