Nine states and have reported infections in 34 herds since the middle of March.

In a Colorado Department of Agriculture news release, Colorado State University veterinarian Maggie Baldwin said the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus is being spread between both dairy cows and herds.

“While we don’t yet completely understand the mechanism of transmission of this virus, we do know that it appears to be spreading from cow to cow and between herds,” she said.

Baldwin’s statement is consistent with a recent USDA announcement which said the department has identified spread between cows within the same herd, from cows to poultry and between dairies associated with cattle movements. There have also been cows without clinical signs that have tested positive.

The news comes hot on the heels of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) national survey that found one in five samples of commercial milk in the U.S. tested positive for traces of bird flu.

The FDA said additional testing will be required to determine whether the intact pathogen is still present and if it remains infectious. At the same time, it said there is “no evidence” that the milk poses a danger or that a live virus is present. Earlier that week, the FDA said that if the milk is pasteurized, it remains safe for human consumption as the process of heating the milk to a specific temperature kills harmful bacteria and viruses.

The U.S. government announced April 29 it’s testing samples of ground beef from retail stores in states with bird flu outbreak in dairy cows, Reuters reported today.

The USDA will analyze the samples using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to see if any viral particles are present. Some dairy cows are processed into ground beef when they grow old. 

According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, a PCR is a lab technique for rapidly producing millions to billions of copies of a specific segment of DNA, which can then be studied in greater detail. 

On April 24 the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced measures to limit the interstate movement of dairy cattle to those that receive a negative test for Influenza A, a measure that comes into effect today.

Owners of herds in which dairy cattle test positive for interstate movement will be required to provide epidemiological information including animal movement tracing.

Dairy cattle affected by HPAI are reported to have decreased feed intake, decreased milk production and abnormal colostrum-like milk. Affected cattle appear to recover after supportive care.

The virus has not been identified in any Canadian dairy or beef herds to date.

Reuters also reported that both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have said the overall public health risk of the flu strain is low. However, it’s higher for those with exposure to infected animals. 

—Updated April 29. Adds information about beef testing, updates subhead.

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The disease was previously identified as Texas Agalactiae Syndrome. However, genetic sequencing revealed the “mystery illness” as a strain of Highly Pathonogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) virus that’s existed in the U.S. for two years.

According to AgWeb.com, the USDA says affected dairy cows do not appear to be transmitting the virus to other cattle within the same herd.

HPAI has been known to transmit to humans, but those cases are rare. The U.S. National Veterinary Services Laboratories says it has not found changes to the virus that would make it more transmissible to humans, adding “The current risk to the public remains low.”

AgWeb cites the Texas Animal Health Commission, which said thus far symptoms last 10 to 14 days.

Clinical signs include a sudden drop in milk production with some severely ill cattle are producing thicker, concentrated, colostrum-like milk; a drop in feed consumption and drop in rumen function; loose feces and some fever.

Older cows mid-lactation may be more likely to become severely ill than younger and fresh cows. Dry cows and heifers seem unaffected. Some herds also reported pneumonia and mastitis.

The exact cause of the illness is still unknown.

According to a fact sheet by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the HPAI virus primarily affects both domestic poultry and wild birds. However, it has also infected mammals.

Federal and state agencies  are quickly expanding testing for HPAI, AgWeb reported. They’re also using viral genome sequencing to help understand the situation.

The Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) also says they are “vigilantly monitoring this outbreak.”

Closer to home, producers are being asked to be diligent in their farm level biosecurity, especially with individuals that have recently been in the U.S.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has also asked for heightened border controls around people who have been on farms in the U.S.

Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) recommended limiting animal movements from U.S. sources.

If animals are brought from the U.S., they should be quarantined on-farm and monitored very carefully for any illness symptoms, especially those listed above.

Producers are also asked to report any potential symptoms to their local veterinarians. If animals are exhibiting symptoms, raw milk shouldn’t be consumed.

DFC said it’s working with the CFIA to monitor the situation and will continue to update should there be further developments.

The HPAI virus has hit Canadian poultry operations in recent years. In 2022, 1.4 million birds were culled on Alberta farms due to HPAI.

—Jeff Melchior writes for the Alberta Farmer Express

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed Canada in the second-last week of November had now met protocol conditions for Seneca Valley virus and has lifted the health certificate requirement, Manitoba Pork general manager Cam Dahl said.

Earlier this year, the U.S. started requiring a veterinary export certificate for cull sows from one Manitoba assembly yard following a rise in Seneca Valley virus cases at U.S. packing plants.  

Seneca Valley virus does not have serious veterinary implications, but it shares symptoms with much more worrisome illnesses like foot-and-mouth disease. If animals arrive at processing sites with these symptoms, an investigation is triggered to rule out the weightier diseases.  

Since September, all sows from one assembly yard in Manitoba had to be inspected and signed off by a veterinarian before they could cross the border — but finding a veterinarian to come out regularly was a challenge due to biosecurity issues.

There was a temporary shipping pause as those logistics were ironed out, Jenelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork’s director of swine health, said in an interview earlier this month. 

While the policy impacted one site, Manitoba Pork became concerned that the certification requirement would be widely applied to assembly yards.

If it had been, Hamblin said, export of cull sows would have ground to a halt due to the resources required to inspect and certify the operations. 

Last summer, the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service had halted shipments from two Manitoba assembly yards for about a week due to the virus. 

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Federal Agriculture Minister and P.E.I. MP Lawrence MacAulay on Friday reported meeting with staff and representatives of the P.E.I. Potato Board, to discuss next steps in the face of new potato wart-related restrictions on the province’s crops since 2021.

Potato wart was first detected in the province in 2000, and after a six-month ban on P.E.I. potato exports to the U.S., a system was put in place allowing exports from lower-risk zones where the fungus hasn’t been detected and where the same equipment wasn’t used.

While not considered a human health or food safety risk, potato wart is known to reduce crop yields and can make potatoes unmarketable by ruining their appearance.

The zone system allowing U.S. exports continued up until October 2021, when potato wart was confirmed in two P.E.I. fields which were related to previous detections and were already under regulation. In November that year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) advised U.S. border services to reject all shipments of P.E.I. potatoes.

P.E.I. potatoes for consumption were admitted again to the U.S. the following April — but exports of field-grown P.E.I. seed potatoes to the U.S. remain prohibited.

A federal ministerial order in place since last Nov. 21 allows for P.E.I. seed potatoes to move to other provinces on a case-by-case basis, and provides for tighter risk controls on P.E.I. table stock and processing potatoes.

‘Next steps’

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) last month completed its investigation into the two 2021 detections. The agency said it collected and analyzed 48,789 soil samples from P.E.I. fields associated with the two findings. Those samples confirmed potato wart in four more fields, bringing the province’s total to 37 affected fields since 2000.

Thus, CFIA said last month, the risks associated with the transmission of potato wart from fresh potatoes from P.E.I. “remain negligible when appropriate risk mitigation measures are in place and followed.”

With the probe complete, MacAulay and CFIA said Friday they’re “committed to engaging with the industry on next steps.”

Those steps, they said, will include criteria for designating PFPP in the province, to “support the movement of commodities including seed potatoes off of the island.”

Plans for a PFPP system were “discussed and welcomed” by the P.E.I. Potato Board during the meeting, the government said.

Over 95 per cent of P.E.I. potatoes continue to remain eligible for export to the rest of Canada and to the U.S., MacAulay said in a federal release, emphasizing “the importance of working together with growers as they maintain and enhance control measures, such as biosecurity and traceability activities” so as to maintain market access.

CFIA said it will “continue to engage” with the P.E.I. industry on program elements to renew Canada’s National Potato Wart Response Plan and work toward implementation of that updated plan in 2024.

A new long-term plan to help continue to contain, control, and prevent the spread of potato wart “will help maintain and improve the economic sustainability of the potato sector in P.E.I. and across Canada, and maintain crucial export markets,” the agency said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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USDA said the animal never entered slaughter channels and the agency did not expect any trade impacts as a result.

It was the seventh detection of BSE in the U.S. since 2003 and all but one have been atypical.

“This finding of an atypical case will not change the negligible risk status of the United States and should not lead to any trade issues,” USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said in a statement.

— Reporting for Reuters by Caroline Stauffer.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said Saturday it had confirmed the presence of high-path avian flu in a “non-poultry” backyard flock of 30 birds in the borough of Matanuska-Susitna, just north of Anchorage.

In all, as of Thursday, APHIS said it has confirmed high-path avian flu in 171 commercial poultry flocks and 112 backyard flocks in 32 states, seven of which — Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Vermont — border directly onto Canada. So far, APHIS puts the number of domestic U.S. birds affected at about 37.36 million.

As of April 28, about 1.37 million domestic Canadian birds are estimated to have been impacted by avian flu outbreaks across nine of 10 provinces.

Since that time, and since our last report on this website, the Canadian Food Inspection has confirmed more outbreaks of avian flu in commercial poultry as well as backyard birds.

In Alberta, two commercial poultry flocks — one at Wainwright and one in Lethbridge County — as well as a small flock in the county of Two Hills, were all confirmed Sunday. All three are considered “poultry” for the purposes of Canada’s avian flu status with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

In Ontario, two commercial flocks in the Regional Municipality of York were confirmed on Wednesday and the previous Friday. Two small flocks in Halton municipality and Wellington County were also confirmed Wednesday. All four flocks are considered “poultry.”

In British Columbia, three small flocks have been confirmed with the virus: one each in Kelowna and Richmond, both confirmed Tuesday, and one in the Regional District of Central Kootenay, confirmed April 27. Only the Kelowna case is considered “non-poultry.”

In Quebec, two small flocks have been confirmed infected: one “poultry” flock in the Haut-Saint-Laurent region, confirmed Tuesday, and one “non-poultry” flock in the La Riviere-du-Nord region, confirmed Wednesday.

In Saskatchewan, a small “non-poultry” flock was confirmed infected April 27 in the southeastern R.M. of Kingsley, south of Broadview.

The new findings bring Canada’s total outbreaks in flocks classified as “poultry” by the OIE — whether in commercial or small flocks — to 59 so far this year across eight provinces, including 22 in southern Ontario, 19 in central and southern Alberta, six in southern Quebec, five in southern and central Saskatchewan, three in southern B.C., two in western Nova Scotia and one each in eastern Manitoba and southeastern New Brunswick.

Ontario’s Feather Board Command Centre, a poultry and egg industry agency monitoring bird disease outbreaks, said that out of 55 Canadian outbreaks as of April 29, 48 per cent of the total domestic birds lost were on broiler breeder operations, while commercial ducks made up 25 per cent, turkeys nine per cent, and 17 per cent were “other” including broiler chickens, layer hens and other birds.

Globally, the FBCC said, close to 100 million domestic birds have been lost during this avian influenza season, which started last fall in Europe and Asia and reached North America in December, when Canada’s first case was seen in a non-poultry flock on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula.

Most of the cases are attributed to migratory and other wild birds being directly or indirectly exposed to poultry, the FBCC said Thursday. Ongoing high wild bird infection pressure will “expose any biosecurity weaknesses, resulting in more outbreaks.”

That said, increases in temperatures and sunlight intensity as days grow longer “should reduce the level of environmental contamination” as virus survival rates are reduced and the virus’ decay accelerates. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Canada’s federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said on Twitter that officials with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) are now preparing to certify exports of eligible P.E.I. potatoes to the U.S. “as quickly as possible” to meet the new rules.

Export certificates can now be requested for shipments that meet the new order from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), CFIA said Friday in a separate notice.

Friday’s order from APHIS ends an export ban in place since Nov. 22. That’s when APHIS advised U.S. border officials to reject shipments of P.E.I. potatoes — thus leaving CFIA unable to certify outgoing shipments, which in turn led to a Canadian ministerial order to suspend export permits.

The suspension had followed confirmations of the fungus that causes potato wart in two P.E.I. fields last October. Another “directly associated” field was confirmed with the fungus last month.

Potato wart is not brand-new to P.E.I., although it remains relatively rare there. The province has confirmed 34 fields with the potato wart pathogen since its first case was discovered, in 2000.

Canadian and U.S. officials, after a months-long ban in 2000, agreed on a new system allowing exports from lower-risk zones of P.E.I. where the fungus hasn’t been detected — and the two countries operated under that system up until the cases in October.

APHIS said Friday its “subsequent confirmatory analysis” of P.E.I.’s potato wart situation in February led to the new order.

While the new order allows imports of P.E.I. potatoes for consumption, it still specifically prohibits imports of the province’s field-grown seed potatoes into the United States. The order allows entry of “in vitro plantlets, micro-tubers and mini-tubers for planting” but those will require a permit.

Under the new order, shipments of P.E.I. table potatoes eligible for export must be:

• from fields that don’t have potato wart or are “associated with known infestations;”
• grown from seed potatoes that were not produced on any wart-infected or wart-associated field;
• washed in P.E.I. to remove soil, and confirmed as free of soil on inspection at the port of entry;
• treated with a sprout inhibitor registered with Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), and accompanied by a statement on the export documentation detailing that treatment;
• graded to meet the U.S. No. 1 standard (equivalent to Canada No. 1);
• officially “inspected for pest freedom” prior to export, after the potatoes are washed; and
• traceable from the field of production through to packing and export, allowing for full traceback and recall if need be.

Consignments arriving at a U.S. port of entry are also subject to inspection and must also come with a CFIA-issued, APHIS-approved certification that the potatoes are “free of quarantine pests for the United States” and declaring they meet all the requirements of the new order.

The new APHIS order replaces previous orders on P.E.I. potato imports for all U.S. states and territories — including for Puerto Rico, where APHIS had already allowed fresh P.E.I. potato exports to resume in February.

The P.E.I. Potato Board, in a separate statement Friday, said it’s “pleased to receive the confirmation” of APHIS’ new order, adding that farmers and potato packers will work with CFIA to “ensure the requirements are clearly understood.”

Potato growers and packers “look forward to moving ahead with shipping P.E.I.’s safe, healthy and world-class potatoes the remainder of the shipping season,” the board said.

That said, the board noted P.E.I. seed potato growers “are still subject to trade restrictions that need urgent attention, particularly with respect to adequate compensation.”

The federal government in December pledged up to $28 million to help P.E.I. growers manage the surplus of potatoes resulting from the U.S. export suspension. A resulting program, which also included $12.2 million in provincial funding, was formally launched in February with the goal of “diverting as many potatoes as possible to processors, packers and food banks.”

Where needed, the program also pledged to help P.E.I. growers cover the cost of “environmentally-sound destruction of surplus potatoes” at a rate of up to 8.5 cents per pound.

The U.S. in 2020 was by far P.E.I.’s biggest customer for potatoes, taking $476.9 million in fresh or chilled and processed potato goods, or just over 92 per cent of the province’s total potato exports, the province said last fall. Those product categories alone formed almost 84 per cent of the province’s total agricultural and agri-food exports last year.

While not considered a human health or food safety risk, potato wart is known to drag down crop yields and can make potatoes unmarketable by ruining their appearance.

The fungal disease appears mainly below-ground, on plants’ tubers and runners. It spreads through movement of affected potatoes, soil, farm equipment and manure from animals that digest infested potatoes.

Among Canadian provinces other than P.E.I., potato wart is present only in Newfoundland and Labrador. Potatoes, root vegetables, soil, used bags, burlap, plants with roots and soil and other containers with soil are not allowed to leave that province, except under CFIA permit. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) on Wednesday announced it had confirmed the presence of high-path H5N1 in a poultry flock in the township of Woolwich, just north of Kitchener.

Further details about the type of birds or number of mortalities weren’t yet available Wednesday afternoon. The agency’s report on the new case isn’t yet publicly available from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Cases were confirmed earlier this week in two commercial turkey flocks: one in the township of Guelph/Eramosa in Wellington County, also north of Kitchener, and the other in the township of Zorra in Oxford County, east of London.

As with the previous cases in Ontario, and in February at two farms in Nova Scotia, CFIA said Wednesday it “has placed the premises under quarantine and is establishing movement control measures and recommending enhanced biosecurity for other farms within that area.”

Separately, the Ontario poultry and egg industries’ Feather Board Command Centre, which monitors disease outbreaks in birds at the provincial, national and global levels, now says it’s monitoring reports of a “small backyard poultry flock with increased mortality” in southwestern Ontario’s upper Bruce Peninsula. There are no commercial flocks in that area, the FBCC said on its website, adding that lab tests are still pending in that case.

Other high-path H5N1 cases in Canada since last fall have included wild birds in all four Atlantic provinces and a bald eagle in the Vancouver area, plus domestic birds at two “non-poultry” farms in Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula and two non-commercial backyard flocks in Nova Scotia.

Since none of those cases involved commercial poultry, Canada had been considered free of high-path avian flu since 2015 just up until last month, when H5N1 was confirmed at a commercial poultry farm and at a mixed farm with poultry, both in western Nova Scotia.

After the on-farm cases in Nova Scotia were confirmed, several countries including the U.S., European Union, Japan and Korea imposed new import restrictions on Canadian poultry, eggs and/or other products, or on those from the affected province.

In the U.S. since February, cases of H5N1 have now been confirmed in commercial poultry and/or backyard flocks in 23 states — including four states directly bordering Canada.

As of Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said it’s confirmed cases in flocks in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Virgina, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The North Dakota outbreak, APHIS said Wednesday, is in a “non-commercial backyard chicken flock” at Kidder County, a south-central jurisdiction east of Bismarck. Minnesota’s cases have included a commercial turkey flock in Meeker County, west of Minneapolis; a “backyard mixed species” flock in Mower County, south of Rochester; and a commercial turkey flock in Stearns County, northwest of Minneapolis.

Among other states bordering Canada, cases of H5N1 were confirmed last month in two non-commercial backyard flocks in Knox County on Maine’s southern coast and in Suffolk County on New York’s Long Island.

This month cases were also confirmed in backyard flocks in Maine’s coastal Lincoln, York and Washington counties — the latter of which borders New Brunswick — and in a backyard flock and birds on a commercial game farm, both also in New York’s Suffolk County.

Avian flu viruses can, on rare occasions, cause disease in people, usually in cases where they’ve had close contact with infected birds or “heavily contaminated” environments, CFIA says.

Clinical signs in infected birds can include “high and sudden” mortality rates as well as declines in production of eggs, many of which are soft-shelled or shell-less; diarrhea; hemorrhages on the hock; quietness and “extreme depression;” swelling of the skin under the eyes; and swollen and congested wattles and combs.

Good biosecurity measures include maintaining “high sanitation standards” in barns and “strict control” over access to poultry houses; keeping poultry away from areas frequented by wild birds; cleaning and disinfecting equipment before taking it into poultry houses; and siting bird feeders or duck ponds well away from poultry barns.

CFIA also recommends people working with poultry suspected of being infected with avian flu, or in contact with such birds, wear protective clothing including face masks, goggles, gloves and boots. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said Thursday that Canada “is expected to soon resume exporting (P.E.I.) table stock potatoes into the contiguous United States.”

APHIS said in a release that the move is a “result of the U.S. and Canada reaching an understanding about the risk of table stock potato imports from P.E.I.”

Canada’s Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau acknowledged APHIS’ decision Thursday on Twitter, saying USDA had “confirmed the resumption of trade for P.E.I. table stock potatoes into the U.S. (with) reasonable science-based conditions.”

“This reopening comes at a critical time for the industry,” Bibeau said in a later statement. “Potato exports are essential for the livelihoods of so many Islanders, and I am confident that this decision by the U.S. will give farmers the predictability and assurances they need for the next potato growing season.”

Following the confirmation of the fungus that causes potato wart in two P.E.I. fields last October, APHIS on Nov. 22 advised U.S. border officials to reject shipments of P.E.I. potatoes, leaving the Canadian Food Inspection Agency “unable to certify potato shipments… given that the exports no longer met the importing country’s requirements.”

P.E.I. has seen 35 detections of potato wart since October 2000. The fungal disease, which appears mainly on stolons and tubers, can reduce yields and make potatoes unmarketable. The U.S. and all mainland Canadian provinces are today considered to be free of potato wart.

The discovery of the disease in the province in 2000 had led the U.S. to briefly close its borders to P.E.I. potatoes until the province’s Potato Wart Domestic Long Term Management Plan was put in place months later, allowing exports from lower-risk zones where the fungus hasn’t been detected and where the same equipment wasn’t used.

Now, Bibeau said in Thursday’s statement, APHIS “has completed their pest risk analysis and concluded, like Canada, that the trade of P.E.I. table stock potatoes can be done safely.”

APHIS said Thursday that Canada will lift the November ban while the agency “plans to publish a federal order outlining additional required mitigations to protect the U.S. potato industry.”

Publication of a U.S. federal order “outlining the required mitigations” for table stock potatoes is expected to take about 10 business days, an APHIS spokesperson said via email Thursday.

USDA and CFIA rules will require that imported table stock potatoes from P.E.I. — and the seed potatoes used to produce those table stock potatoes — must originate from fields not known to be infested with potato wart or associated with known infestations, APHIS said Thursday.

The table stock potatoes, APHIS said, “must be washed in P.E.I. to remove soil, treated with a sprout inhibitor, and graded to meet the U.S. No 1 standard. Shipments must be officially inspected by (CFIA) and certified as meeting USDA requirements.”

Meanwhile, seed potatoes from P.E.I. for planting in the U.S. “are not allowed importation at this time,” the APHIS spokesperson said separately.

APHIS said it “will continue to work with Canada to increase confidence in its long-term management plan for potato wart, specifically to finish processing remaining samples associated with recent detections, to expand surveillance of non-regulated fields in P.E.I., and to continue its national surveillance program.”

“USDA bases all our agricultural trade decisions on sound science,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in Thursday’s release. “We are confident that table stock potatoes can enter the United States with appropriate safeguards in place to ensure the U.S. potato industry remains protected.”

CFIA, Bibeau said Thursday, “will work in collaboration with industry to implement the new export requirements for the U.S. in short order” and will complete its ongoing investigations in P.E.I. and technical work to provide APHIS with the “necessary, science-based assurances in order to fully restore the trade.”

APHIS’ announcement comes as Canada’s federal opposition Conservatives said earlier this week that the Canadian government was “no closer to a solution” on the matter “and P.E.I. farmers are paying the price.”

“As a result of our inability to export produce to the United States, more than 300 million pounds of potatoes have been destroyed or left to rot, and multi-year damage has been done to the potato seed industry,” Conservative ag critic John Barlow said Monday in a statement.

“It is heartbreaking for P.E.I. farmers to destroy what was a bumper crop, but now Liberal inaction has put next year’s season in jeopardy. The irreparable damage to the agriculture industry in P.E.I. will be felt for generations to come.”

Exports of fresh potatoes were allowed to resume last month from P.E.I. to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, which is considered to be at low risk for the disease as it has no commercial potato industry of its own.

The Canadian government in December pledged up to $28 million to help P.E.I. potato producers manage the surplus of potatoes resulting from the U.S. export suspension.

A resulting program, which also included $12.2 million in provincial funding, was formally launched in February with the goal of “diverting as many potatoes as possible to processors, packers and food banks.”

Where needed, the program was also expected to help P.E.I. potato growers cover the cost of “environmentally-sound destruction of surplus potatoes” at a rate of up to 8.5 cents per pound.

The U.S. in 2020 was by far P.E.I.’s biggest customer for potatoes, taking $476.9 million in fresh or chilled and processed potato goods, or just over 92 per cent of the province’s total potato exports, the province said last fall. Those product categories alone formed almost 84 per cent of the province’s total agricultural and agri-food exports last year. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency last week filed a report with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) confirming an outbreak of high-path H5N1 avian influenza (AI) in birds on a commercial turkey farm in Kings County, in western Nova Scotia.

The outbreak marks Canada’s first bout of high-path avian flu in commercial poultry since an H5N2 strain hit birds in British Columbia and southern Ontario in 2014 and 2015. Canada until now had been deemed free of high-path avian flu since 2015.

But with Canada’s animal health status now changed to “not free from AI,” several countries have put restrictions in place on poultry, eggs and/or other products, CFIA said. (See list below.)

Gene sequencing and PCR tests for the disease were run Thursday (Feb. 3) at CFIA’s National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg after “high mortality” was reported Jan. 30 at the Nova Scotia farm, the agency said in its OIE report.

Out of 11,800 birds at the property, 6,146 had died, CFIA reported. The outbreak had a 98 per cent mortality rate among affected nine-week-old birds, but just six per cent in three-week-old birds.

CFIA confirmed the virus strain to be H5N1, similar to the strain found in separate “non-poultry” outbreaks on farms and in backyard flocks in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in the past three months, as well as in wild birds in those provinces.

Analysis of the strain shows it corresponds to the “Eurasian lineage” of H5N1 known to have been circulating in 2021 in poultry in Europe, CFIA said in its report.

The infected Nova Scotia turkey farm was “immediately” quarantined and is now subject to “strict movement controls and a stamping-out policy,” the agency said.

Those controls include setting up a three-kilometre “protection zone” and a 10-km “surveillance zone” around the infected premises. That means “enhanced biosecurity” for other farms within those zones.

Surviving birds on the infected farm have been culled, the Feather Board Command Centre — an Ontario industry body tracking bird disease outbreaks worldwide — said Friday in a biosecurity advisory for members.

CFIA’s report came just days before the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) on Wednesday confirmed an outbreak of high-path avian flu on a commercial turkey farm in southern Indiana’s Dubois County, about 110 km west of Louisville, Ky. It marks the first such outbreak in the U.S. since 2020.

The FBCC said the H5N1 strain is being carried by wild birds in the Atlantic Flyway, a migratory path for wild birds which carries them over much of Eastern Canada and the U.S. southeastern seaboard.

“Given that Ontario is part of this same flyway and that a commercial flock in Nova Scotia has now been infected, it would be prudent” for poultry producers along the flyway to review their biosecurity measures, the FBCC said.

That means keeping poultry away from areas frequented by wild birds; keeping “strict control” over access to poultry barns and farms; cleaning and disinfecting equipment before taking it into poultry barns; wearing only clean clothing and changing footwear before entering production areas; and closely monitoring flock health.

Trade suspensions

With Canada now deemed “not free from avian influenza,” several countries have put restrictions in place on its poultry and/or products, CFIA said. So far those include:

• United States: live birds, raw pet food and edible poultry meat and eggs from the Nova Scotia control zone, except pre-cooked products;
• Mexico: live poultry and poultry products from Nova Scotia;
• Russia: live poultry and poultry products from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador;
• Japan: live poultry, hatching eggs, poultry meat and meat products from Nova Scotia;
• European Union: live birds, hatching eggs, animal products for pet food manufacturing, raw pet food, poultry meat and poultry products including eggs and processed egg products from the control zone in Nova Scotia;
• South Korea: live poultry, hatching eggs, birds other than poultry including wild birds, poultry meat and edible eggs from Canada;
• Philippines: live poultry, hatching eggs, birds other than poultry including wild birds, poultry meat and edible eggs from Canada;
• South Africa: live poultry, hatching eggs and poultry products from Canada packaged after Jan. 17, 2022, other than heat-treated products;
• Taiwan: products from Nova Scotia; and
• Hong Kong: products from western Nova Scotia.

— Article updated Feb. 10, 2022 to include list of countries with import suspensions now in place.

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