Highly pathogenic avian influenza has hit a majority of the U.S. this year and continues affecting millions of birds. African swine fever is in the Dominican Republic, reaching the Western hemisphere for the first time in 40 years. These examples of foreign animal diseases (FADs) impacting other livestock sectors demonstrate how quickly and widespread an outbreak could affect the dairy industry.
To help build a stronger foundation and more resiliency against FADs, the National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program recently launched a biosecurity program. The new program builds on the existing animal care program and Secure Milk Supply (SMS) Plan, providing resources to protect herd and employee health.
The program includes two pillars – everyday biosecurity and enhanced biosecurity. Below is an overview of what each pillar entails.
Everyday biosecurity
The everyday biosecurity pillar focuses on preventing the introduction, detecting the presence and containing the spread of infectious and non-infectious diseases. Everyday biosecurity practices protect against common diseases like contagious mastitis, respiratory infections and scours. With effective biosecurity steps, farmers can prevent or lessen the impact of these diseases on their farms.
The program provides templates and educational materials on the best management practices to prevent disease. Many of these practices build on current animal care program standards. It will provide guidance for creating a biosecurity program or expanding an existing program through best management practices for:
- Animal health and disease monitoring
- Animal movements and contact
- Animal products
- Vehicles and equipment
- Personnel
- Cleaning and disinfection
- Line of separation
Everyday biosecurity lays the foundation for enhanced biosecurity, which is designed to help prepare farmers to respond to an FAD outbreak.
Enhanced biosecurity
The enhanced biosecurity pillar is the next step after a farm has implemented everyday biosecurity. Enhanced biosecurity will help prepare farmers for an FAD outbreak, specifically foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), by incorporating the on-farm aspects of the SMS Plan. The plan helps ensure business continuity for the entire dairy supply chain during an FAD outbreak.
FMD is one of the most contagious diseases for cloven-hoofed animals. The health consequences are severe for infected animals. It causes painful blisters in the mouth and on the feet and teats of cattle. Infected adult animals go off feed, become lame and lose production, and calves may die due to heart disease. The economic consequences for infected farms can be devastating.
The best way to ensure business continuity is to ensure cattle do not become infected with FMD. Therefore, preventing exposure is critical. Farmers should work with their herd veterinarian to develop an operation-specific, written, enhanced biosecurity plan. Resources are available on the program's website, including:
- Self-assessment checklist
- Information manual
- Biosecurity performance standards for raw milk collection and transport
- Enhanced biosecurity template
Animal and milk movement during an FMD outbreak will require a special permit. The SMS Plan provides voluntary guidance to prepare for an outbreak. It also includes guidance for farmers who have cattle with no evidence of FMD infection to meet movement permit requirements.
Good biosecurity takes time and practice to be effective. Building everyday practices into your routine and having an enhanced biosecurity plan can protect your animals, employees and business from disease threats.
Industry-wide effort
The program established a task force to assist with the biosecurity program development and strategy to ensure a lasting, impactful program. The task force is comprised of dairy farmers, cooperative and processor staff, academic experts and state and federal animal health officials.
In collaboration with the USDA, FARM Biosecurity will provide the resources needed for farmers to build their own biosecurity plans. The program also will provide fact sheets, visitor logs and posters in addition to a biosecurity manual.
FARM Biosecurity is supported by the USDA’s National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP). The cooperative agreement is from March 1, 2021, until Feb. 28, 2023. NADPRP was established in the 2018 Farm Bill to further efforts to prevent high-consequence animal diseases from impacting our nation’s herds.
Visit NationalDairyFARM.com to learn more about biosecurity and access resources.
