Tuesday, National Pork Producer Council leaders testified in front of a House Ag Subcommittee outlining their priority for the 2018 Farm Bill. NPPC’s Dave Warner says they want the USDA to develop a Foot and Mouth Disease vaccine bank and for Congress to fund it.

He says a potential Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak would cost the pork, beef, corn and soybean industries alone an estimated $200 billion over ten years. Warner says the cost of establishing an FMD vaccine bank would be significant.

Warner says FMD has already spread to several countries and the chances for it to occur are greater than ever before.

NPPC wants the FMD vaccine bank to have available antigen to protect against the 23 of the most common FMD types currently circulating the globe.