State plans database, mobile center to track sicknesses in animals
Posted on Friday, May 5, 2006
A marketing campaign costing $ 100, 000 is planned by Arkansas agriculture officials to urge farmers to register with the government so officials can keep track of dangerous animal sicknesses like mad-cow disease. Meanwhile, the state plans to use federal money to hire two new workers and buy a
ile emergency command center to prepare for another animal health threat — the bird flu virus. Both programs demonstrate the concern that global animal diseases are causing in Arkansas, where agriculture is a major part of the economy. And though mad-cow disease and bird flu are high-profile problems now, officials said the equipment and programs put in place today could help fight any animal illness.
To help create a database of farms, the state wants farmers to send in basic information including farm locations and the animal species on the property. Radio, television and print ads will promote the program.
“Don’t put it off, friend, let’s get ahead of this thing,” spokesman John Philpot says in a radio ad that lists a phone number and Web site.
Advertisers picked Philpot because he is a trusted figure among Arkansas farmers because of his years of public speaking on agriculture issues, said Gary Heathcott, president of the Little Rock ad agency that produced the campaign. The ads also emphasize that the program is free and voluntary.
Some farmers may not want to give out information about their operations, said Aubrey Blackmon, president of the Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association.
“But it will be market-driven. And in the long run they will,” he said.
The reason, he said, is that farmers see exports as a way to earn more money, and major export markets like Japan want reassurances about America’s methods for tracking animal diseases.
Japan reinstated its ban on U. S. beef in January over concerns about mad-cow disease. People who eat meat contaminated with the disease can develop a brain-wasting disorder.
Officials hope to create an electronic database that would make it easier to pinpoint where infected animals have been.
Currently that’s very difficult. The government recently gave up trying to find the origins of an Alabama cow infected with madcow disease after investigating more than three dozen farms.
Under the envisioned tracking systems, all animals on the market would have electronic ear tags or chips implanted under the skin. But before that, it’s necessary to create a database of farms and similar operations. That’s where the ads and the voluntary registration system come in, said Phil Wyrick, executive director of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission.
Already, the state has registered about 5, 800 of the roughly 60, 000 farms in Arkansas, he said Wednesday at an Arkansas Agriculture Board meeting in Little Rock.
Meanwhile, Wyrick said the state is also concerned about another animal disease: the H 5 N 1 strain of bird flu.
The virus has led to the deaths of more than 200 million animals worldwide since it emerged in Asia in 2003. More than 100 people with close contact to birds have died of the flu, but it does not spread easily between humans.
Public-health officials fear that the virus could mutate and become more deadly to humans. The disease hasn’t spread to the United States.
Arkansas has stepped up testing and the virus isn’t here, Wyrick said, but any outbreak — or even unfounded public fear — could dry up demand for poultry and hurt the state’s large poultry industry, he said.
On April 28, state and federal officials reviewed emergency plans for combating the virus by isolating the outbreak, killing infected animals and safely disposing of the carcasses.
The state is to receive $ 591, 500 in federal grants that will allow the hiring of a veterinarian and a secretary to handle bird-flu issues.
The money would also pay for more lab testing and a mobile unit that would be taken onto a contaminated farm and serve as an operations center, Wyrick said.
“It would be irresponsible for us not to be ready to react to the threat,” he said.
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