biosecurity

African Swine Fever is a growing threat, as the disease spreads to countries close to the U.S., but Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says there’s still no ready vaccine, so preventing entry here is the best option. The highly contagious, deadly, and economically devastating disease is on the move, now in countries all over the world and as close as the Caribbean. Sec ...

For poultry producers, backyard and commercial, "...if you have not recently reviewed your biosecurity plan, now is a really good time to do that," noted Dr. Rosemary Sifford with APHIS. That' warning coming as USDA has confirmed some more wild birds carrying the highly pathogenic avian influenza ...

Development continues for a variety of biological controls for crop pests and disease utilizing living organisms; part of evolving innovations in agriculture. "Products use beneficial bacteria to control disease in primarily vegetable crops," noted Jason Ward of Novozymes ...

As we told you last week, African Swine Fever was recently discovered in the Dominican Republic. "It's a disease that pigs and pigs only. it doesn't effect man in any way and another other animal species except the swine populations in the world ...

The USDA announced this week that the Dominican Republic has confirmed cases of African swine fever. The cases were confirmed as part of a cooperative surveillance program between the United States and the Dominican Republic. The United States remains free of ASF, an animal disease affecting only pigs with no human health implications, and imports no pork, animal feed or other pork-related product

To encouraging Washington’s cattle industry to either try out, or renew usage of the ECTR system, the state Department of Agriculture is offering free RFID tags. The WSDA’s Brennan Kimbel said ECTR, the Electronic Cattle Transaction Reporting System, offers ranchers and dairy owners an alternative way to meet brand inspection requirement s through self-reporting of sales and out-of-state cattle m

USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service recently highlighted many of the advancements in AG biosecurity in 2020. Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Greg Ibach, said among the highlights, progress on a Foot and Mouth vaccine bank ...

Earlier this week, the Washington state Department of Agriculture announced it was waiving import requirement on livestock from Oregon. The move allows animals displaced by wildfires, to temporarily stay in Washington, provided they don’t change ownership and return to Oregon within 30 days. Off ...

Most livestock producers are very aware of the importance of maintaining strong biosecurity practices to keep diseases from infecting their herds or birds. But one expert said that with all that's going on the to conoravirus all farmers should take biosecurity measures to keep their workers healthy and safe ...

The Washington state Department of Agriculture is asking Horse owners across the Northwest to keep an eye out for strangles.  Dr. Ric Torgerson says strangles is a bacterial infection caused by streptococcus.  He added while the name may not be familiar, he says the disease is fairly common.   “...