Representatives of the Pork, Dairy and Corn Industries along with Iowa State University are calling on the USDA to quickly move forward to establish a Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank. Iowa State Veterinarian Dr. James (raw-th) Roth says having FMD vaccine available is critical in protecting U.S. agriculture from a potential outbreak.
National Pork Producers Council’s Chief Veterinarian Dr. Liz Wagstrom is encouraged the USDA has begun the process of moving ahead with the vaccine bank. She says however they need to continue to move as quickly as possible to get that established.
National Corn Grower’s Associations Director of Market Development Sarah McKay says the corn industry also needs to be protected from any FMD outbreaks and wants to see the vaccine bank up and running.
Iowa State University research says an FMD outbreak would result in $128 billion in losses for the beef and pork sectors and $44 billion to the corn industry and $25 billion to the soybean industry. There would also be 1.5 million agriculture related jobs lost over 10 years.
