A well-designed biosecurity plan is essential for managing and reducing risks to your livestock. Start by breaking the plan into clear categories with specific on-farm actions. For example, establish protocols for outside visitors to minimize potential disease introduction.

Next, determine the level of risk you are comfortable accepting and managing. This will vary depending on your operation type and can be categorized as high, medium or low.

Accurate, up-to-date records of animal health, data and transportation movements are critical. These records give you the information needed to make informed decisions quickly and effectively.

Finally, make sure your plan is practical and cost-effective. A plan that looks good on paper but cannot be implemented will not provide real benefits. For more information, refer to the biosecurity resources available on the Beef Cattle Research Council, Government of Canada and Verified Beef Production Plus websites.

Animal movement

Controlling animal movement is one of the most effective ways to prevent the introduction and spread of disease. Proper management reduces pathogen exposure, protects vulnerable animals and helps maintain overall herd health. Implementing the following strategies during calving season can significantly lower biosecurity risks:

• When doing chores, consider starting in the low-risk areas first and working your way up to the higher-risk areas to prevent any pathogens from spreading.
• Segregate high-risk or sick animals from the main herd to prevent disease transmission. Sick animals should have their own segregated area where commingling is reduced.
• Group cattle according to risk level. For example, the Sandhills calving system can reduce pathogen exposure in calving areas by separating freshly calved pairs and pregnant cows.
• Quarantine new animals for 21-30 days before introducing them to the herd to protect both the new animals and the existing herd. This reduces the risk of disease exposure and spread.
• Manage contaminants such as manure, soil piles and deadstock carefully. These areas should be positioned to avoid draining into water sources.

Cleaning, disinfecting and PPE

Maintaining a clean environment using the right tools and proper personal protective equipment (PPE) are essential to any biosecurity plan. Effective cleaning and disinfecting helps eliminate pathogens before they spread, while PPE protects both you and your livestock from disease risks. These practices should be consistent and thorough to ensure maximum protection:

• Cleaning and drying of a surface is required prior to disinfecting. Disinfecting uses chemicals to break down pathogens. When using disinfecting products, it is important to know which pathogens you are trying to eliminate, the mixing instructions and the recommended contact time for the pathogen to be destroyed. More information on this can be found on the Beef Cattle Research Council website.
• Clean and disinfect equipment, tools, trailers and transport vehicles regularly, especially after handling sick animals. Don’t forget items like bottles or stomach tubes, as cross-contamination can be a serious threat to newborn calves.
• Wearing proper PPE is imperative for protecting yourself from zoonotic pathogens and disease. Zoonotic diseases are infectious pathogens that are naturally spread from animals to humans. Salmonella is a common zoonotic disease that may be transmitted from sick calves during calving season. Some items to wear when appropriate for specific tasks include coveralls, boots and gloves.
• Practice proper hygiene by washing your hands. Hand washing is a critical step to prevent the spread of pathogens between animals and people.

Work with your veterinarian

Calving season is busy for veterinarians, too. Establishing a vet-client relationship ahead of time ensures the veterinarian knows your operation and can assist with animal health, medications and vaccinations when needed.

Calving season brings unique challenges, but implementing a practical biosecurity plan helps protect both your herd and your operation. By focusing on creating a biosecurity plan involving animal movement, sanitation and veterinary support strategies, you can reduce disease risks and set your operation up for a successful calving season.

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“H1N1 has been another poster child for active, ongoing risk management.”

If there was any lingering doubt of the huge economic and psychological blow dealt to the pork industry in the wake of H1N1 influenza, it was quickly erased for those attending the Banff Pork Seminar, a leading seminar for the pork industry held annually in Banff, Alberta.

Two speakers who presented on “What the next pandemic may bring” offered a sobering picture of both the market cost of H1N1 and the new era of pandemic concern it has further ushered in. The silver lining is market recovery in recent months and lessons learned that can help the industry prepare for future challenges.

Economist Ron Gietz of Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development presented data and analysis that estimated the market cost of H1NI, illustrating dramatic losses on a number of fronts, from a major and immediate impact on the hog futures market to slashed exports and overall reduced prices.

Gietz pegged total H1N1-related economic damage at $1.3 billion for the North American pork industry from May to October 2009. “Hog producers were the big losers, arguably to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars,” he says.

In the futures market, a key indicator is the lean hog futures trade, which showed plummeting values in the months immediately following the news of H1N1 in late April. “The loss in value was stark,” says Gietz. “Every contract until the fall closed out sharply lower than its trading value on April 24, when H1N1 first made news.”

Persistent media use of the term “swine flu,” which became a major focus of industry frustration and damage control efforts, likely dealt a crushing impact, observes Gietz.

“It hardly seems likely that a relatively mild new flu strain with the name of H1N1-or perhaps Mexican flu would have had any lasting impact on world pork trade, or hog and pork markets, even if discovered in the occasional swine herd.”

Markets over the fall and winter for the most part have recovered from H1N1-related losses, he observes. While producers and their industry had little control over the H1N1 situation, lessons reinforced included the importance of ongoing risk assessment.

“H1N1 has been another poster child for active, ongoing risk management. There’s no such thing as certainty in the markets and we need to be prepared for anything.”

Soren Alexandersen of the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease, Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), offered a global picture of current and emerging zoonotic disease threats, further reinforcing the increased importance of preparedness and surveillance in this new age.

Zoonotic diseases are those involving micro-organisms capable of causing disease in both humans and animals, and their importance is becoming increasingly critical on both a local and global scale, says Alexandersen. Of particular concern are those considered “transboundary” or able to spread across national and international boundaries.

The CFIA is among those monitoring all current and emerging threats, while aiming to ramp up their pandemic readiness, he says. The future is likely to see additional novel and emerging pathogens at a rate of one to three pathogens per year of which most will have zoonotic potential.

“Based on what is known from the past, most of these novel pathogens will be viruses, most of ten RNA viruses, with an or igin in wildlife and often driven by human activities including population growth,” says Alexandersen.

The most efficient way to counteract novel pathogens is to discover them early, says Alexandersen. Canada advocates being part of internationally co-ordinated efforts to do that under a “one-world, one-health” concept, he says. “We need to have excellent surveillance. We need to be as well prepared as possible.”

Of interest, the origins of the new pandemic H1N1 virus remain in question, he reported. H1N1 contains genes of several known viruses of swine, avian and human origin. “It is important to note the ancestor to this virus may have been present 10 to 15 years ago, based on evolutionary estimates, and that it, as far as known, was not detected in pigs or any other species during this period. It is still unclear where, how and in which species this novel virus evolved before being recognized in April 2009.”

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That means workers, for instance, should stay out of the barn if they’re sick, said provincial farm safety coordinator Glen Blahey during a farm safety seminar here hosted jointly by KAP and MAFRI this month.

Those at highest risk are those who don’t wear any sort of personal protective equipment and who come in direct contact with groups of sick or dead and infected animals. Those handling slurry, working for prolonged periods in a barn with sick animals or even handling a single animal in an open air environment are also at moderate risk, Blahey said.

“If someone working in the barn has a cold or a flu they should not be in the barn,” he said. “It’s all just part of good herd management.”

Zoonotic diseases spread when workers inhale dust particles containing the infectious organisms, or when workers come in contact with a diseased animals’ waste or bodily fluids.

Protective clothing includes disposable rubber gloves and overalls. Regular overalls worn around animals should always be laundered separately from the family wash as an additional protective measure, Blahey noted. Frequent hand-washing and avoiding touching eyes or mucous membranes with unwashed hands are also protective measures.

Examples of zoonotic diseases in addition to influenza type A include anthrax, brucellosis, listeriosis, rabies, ringworm, salmonella, and hantavirus.

lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

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“Something needs to be done to show reduced levels of these frequencies.”

– RICHARD HOLLEY, U OF M

Two recent high-profile cases of foodborne illness have once again raised concerns about the safety of North America’s food supply.

Last year, 20 Canadians died and 36 more sickened after eating processed meat contaminated by Listeria monocytogenes from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto.

More lately, the Peanut Corporation of America filed for bankruptcy following 575 illnesses, including eight deaths, in 43 U. S. states from salmonella poisoning traced to contaminated peanut products at a company plant at Plainview, Tex.

The listeria outbreak was the result of inadequate plant sanitation. So was the salmonella outbreak.

But the incidents raise the larger issue about the increasing frequency of foodborne illnesses and why they occur.

For Richard Holley, one of Canada’s leading food scientists, the issue is not just what comes out of processing plants. It’s what enters animals’ mouths before they go to the plants.

In other words, it’s about contaminated livestock feed.

It’s scientifically accepted that bacteria and other zoonotic pathogens from colonized food animals can be transmitted to humans through the food supply. (Zoonotic means transmissible from animals to humans.)

But Holley takes it one step further by saying animals get these pathogens through the recycling of animal waste into livestock feed.

The result is a cycle of recontamination, which good agricultural practices and on-farm HACCP programs fail to solve because they do not consider the use of pathogen-free feed important, said Holley, a University of Manitoba food science professor.

“It’s a no-brainer for me, based on evidence that currently exists in the literature, there is a link between feeding animals zoonotic pathogens and the animals shedding them,” he said in a recent interview.

“When you take a look at the increasing frequencies with which animals are contaminated by these organisms that find their way into produce, something needs to be done to show reduced levels of these frequencies.”

METALS, POULTRY LITTER

The only way to accomplish that is to strictly control and monitor the way livestock feeds are manufactured and distributed, said Holley.

Currently, there’s no restriction on what goes into livestock feed as long as it doesn’t make animals sick, he said.

As a result, animal feed ingredients can include rendered animal products, plant-and animal-based fats, antibiotics, metals and even poultry litter (the latter more so in the U. S. than in Canada).

Recycling animal waste into livestock feed has been practised for years, partly as a way to cut feed costs.

But because of these feeding practices, “etiologic agents” (things that cause disease in humans) abound in animals and even in the food they produce, said Holley.

These include bacteria, bacterial toxins, viruses, fungi, protozoans and parasites.

As a result of recycling pathogens in feed, infectious agents are now endemic in food animals. Nearly 100 per cent of chickens have campylobacter, 50 per cent of hogs are contaminated with salmonella and four per cent of cattle carry the potentially deadly E. coli 0157:H7 bacteria strain, Holley said.

In a recent article in Prophylaxis, the Ontario Food Protection Association newsletter, he noted the risks of recycling zoonotic pathogens in the food supply.

Holley said he’s not opposed to including animal protein and other byproducts in livestock feed because they can have nutritive and medicinal value.

But he called for stricter regulation of the livestock feed industry, including programs to prevent cross-contamination with zoonotic pathogens.

“They would be instituted in such a way that there would always be a critical control point allowing for the elimination of these zoonotic pathogens in animal feed. In addition, (they) would ensure that the final products were not cross-contaminated at any time.”

Holley said industry must take responsibility for this because the only people who can make sure it happens are the ones actually doing the work.

At the same time, food safety in Canada goes beyond having more inspectors and end-product testing, he said.

“It relates to developing a better co-ordinated food inspection system in this country and development of better foodborne surveillance programs.” ron@fbcpublishing.com

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“You can’t inspect safety into food. You must build safety in.”

– Richard Holley

As listeria fades to the back pages, University of Manitoba researcher Richard Holley wants the public to know that there is more to fear from foodborne pathogens like campylobacter and salmonella than the listeria pathogen.

Holley’s job in the faculty of agriculture and food science at the University of Manitoba made him a good candidate for the press to reach for comments and quotes during the crisis.

Holley recently told the Manitoba Farm Writers and Broadcasters Association the press generally handled the story well. But he was disappointed by the lack of attention paid to the fact that food safety must be addressed at all levels of the production chain.

“You can’t inspect safety into food,” he said, “you must build safety in.”

Inspectors who check processing plants can evaluate basic cleanliness, and determine whether paperwork seems in order, but they can’t actually see the bacteria.

For Holley, ridding foods of pathogens requires an all-encompassing approach.

“It’s dumb to feed animals these diseases,” said Holley, yet he said many of these diseases are present in animal feed and their repeated ingestion lengthens the period animals shed them in manure.

“The zoonotic pathogens are carried asymptomatically by the animals, but cause human illness,” he said.

Because the bacteria don’t make the animals sick, it seems there is no hurry to fix the problem.

Although the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has overall responsibility for food inspection in Canada, provinces and municipalities are also involved. These activities are poorly coordinated and often the rules differ, leading to differences in what is acceptable performance. This is coupled with the absence of a national intestinal disease surveillance system, which could identify disease agents and the foods which most frequently make people ill.

Unfortunately, these gaps create a situation in which food safety risk can’t accurately be measured, let alone managed. Holley said it was well into the second week of the story before these deficiencies attracted media attention. With the listeria crisis in the news for about eight weeks, Holley gave 110 interviews. He said it is important to remember that the illnesses and 20 deaths with a link to the problems in the Maple Leaf plant involved people whose immune systems were otherwise compromised.

The outbreak from Maple Leaf was actually contained within three months although it can take up to three years to pinpoint the source where outbreaks occur in other countries.

Holley said campylobacter and salmonella diseases make more people sick and are a much more serious problem in Canada than listeria. Campylobacter is on most chicken before cooking and the only safe way to stop bringing the pathogen into the kitchen, where it may cross-contaminate uncooked produce is to pasteurize the chicken by irradiation.

Safer food is possible. But it will be costly. When avian flu hit flocks and BSE hit herds, many animals were slaughtered and feed ingredient restrictions were put in place. But those are diseases affecting mainly animals and their occurrence has significant trade and economic impact. Since their discovery, these diseases have killed less than 300 people worldwide whereas salmonella alone, silently and often without headlines kills 500 people in the U. S. each year with listeria chalking up the same number.

bonnieb@fbcpublishing.com

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