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Wisconsin ag, government officials hold mock FMD training drill

Ag leaders managed a mock outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease during a Wisconsin training exercise.

National Pork Board’s Cindy Cunningham tells Brownfield they brought livestock groups, state ag and emergency management officials to Spring Green, Wisconsin for a tabletop exercise to practice managing an FMD outbreak, “So that the people who are participating in these drills can get the real feel for what would happen in an FMD outbreak, and just what it would take to deal with it from an operations standpoint.”

Assistant State Veterinarian Darlene Konkle says she had good questions from participants that need answers, one of them being how to dispose of euthanized animals.  “What we need to work harder on, I think, or work more creatively on is ways to humanely do that, ways to dispose of these animals, and ways to keep low-risk animals and products moving on to their destination so we can keep some business continuity.”

Facilitator Bruce Spence showed the group the need to plan for every little detail, and how an ag emergency can consume resources quickly.  He tells Brownfield, “This (exercise) was just three sites, and we were already running out of resources, so if this escalates over to a full-blown state, this is going to be a tremendous, hard, difficult road to go down to finish it.”  Spence says the response teams would finish the task, but it will take a great deal of time and resources.

Iowa County Emergency Management Coordinator Keith Hurlbert has trained for severe weather, property damage, and other scenarios, but this was his first agriculture emergency exercise.  He tells Brownfield, “This was a great training.  It took us out of our box of normal, safe feeling of doing exercises and made you think, and I think that it had a huge impact.”

Cunningham says Wisconsin has a huge advantage if there ever is a disease outbreak because of their mandatory premise ID registration databank, which she says will help officials rapidly locate the producers whose herds might be impacted by a disease.

Brownfield was invited to participate in the training exercise Wednesday, March 21st at the Spring Green, Wisconsin Fire District headquarters.  Listen to Brownfield interviews with participants below:

Assistant State Veterinarian Darlene Konkle

Cindy Cunningham with the National Pork Board

Facilitator Bruce Spence

Iowa County, Wisconsin Emergency Management Coordinator Kieth Hurlbert