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Ag groups encourage use of farm bill funds to create FMD vaccine bank

National agriculture groups are calling on the USDA to establish a Foot-and-Mouth Disease vaccine bank as soon as possible.

The National Pork Producers Council, National Milk Producers Federation and National Corn Growers Association want to use mandatory funding included in the 2018 Farm Bill to purchase enough vaccine to effectively control a potential FMD outbreak.

During a press conference Tuesday, Dr. James Roth with Iowa State University explained how difficult it is to vaccinate against FMD.

“There are seven different serotypes and 65 different subtypes around the world. The World Reference Laboratory says you need 23 different vaccines to cover all those potential subtypes of virus. So, we need to stockpile multiple different vaccines to be sure we have the one that we may need.”

Roth says unlike FMD outbreaks in the early 1900’s, it could take years to eradicate a new outbreak without vaccines because of the increase in movement of animals.

University of Iowa research shows an outbreak would cause significant losses to crop and animal agriculture including $128 billion to the beef and pork sectors over ten years and immediate loss of export markets.

Foot-and-Mouth Disease is a viral disease of livestock including cattle, hogs and sheep. It poses no threat to human health or food safety.