Tag: animal care

Biosecurity Critical to Dairy Every Day

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

By Miquela Hanselman, Regulatory Affairs Manager, NMPF.

In the winter months, people often take extra precautions against illnesses like the flu or the common cold because they understand the benefits of staying healthy. Every farmer knows that simple on-farm actions help keep animals healthy. But routine best practices — as well as enhanced ones that are especially important in a world of animal disease outbreaks that destroy markets as well as herds—are critical to keep top-of-mind as farmers strive to have healthy animals, healthy employees, and a healthy dairy economy.

That’s why the National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program created the first Everyday Biosecurity Manual. Biosecurity is the newest FARM Program area, beginning in 2021 through funding from USDA’s National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program. It focuses on increasing awareness of biosecurity throughout the dairy industry by providing practical and effective steps to further promote cattle health. This voluntary program complements the animal health and husbandry recommendations included in the FARM Animal Care, Drug Residue Prevention, and Environmental Stewardship programs.

Seven areas to protect health

The Everyday Biosecurity Manual outlines small, routine steps dairy farmers can take to protect herd and employee health through seven areas — animal health and disease monitoring, animal movements and contact, animal products, vehicles and equipment, personnel, cleaning and disinfection, and a line of separation. Putting everyday biosecurity measures in place can prevent the introduction, detect the presence, and contain the spread of diseases among both cattle and people. Everyday biosecurity practices protect against common diseases like contagious mastitis, respiratory infections, and scours. With effective everyday biosecurity steps, farmers can prevent or lessen the impact of these diseases on their cattle.

Biosecurity is a multistep process. Along with everyday measures, producers also need enhanced biosecurity to protect cattle from highly contagious foreign animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). FARM Biosecurity also complements the Secure Milk Supply (SMS) Plan for Continuity of Business during an FMD outbreak, which includes enhanced biosecurity recommendations. The FARM Biosecurity program aligns everyday steps with these enhanced steps to ensure producers have the right tools to protect their cattle from common or high-consequence diseases.

The SMS Plan was developed in collaboration with industry representatives, state and federal animal health officials, and academic partners with USDA funding beginning in 2009. In an FMD outbreak, dairy farms located in a regulatory control area would need a movement permit issued by the state to ship cattle, semen, embryos, and possibly raw milk. The FARM Biosecurity Program is also developing an online option for producers, their veterinarian, and their FARM evaluator to create an enhanced biosecurity plan ahead of an outbreak. Once put in place, cattle will be better protected against FMD, and producers will be better positioned to meet the biosecurity movement permit requirement to move their cattle and products during an FAD outbreak.

Good biosecurity takes time and practice to be effective. Making these practices routine — or reinforcing the best management practices in the Everyday Biosecurity Manual — can help protect animals from all kinds of diseases. This ultimately moves the industry one step closer to protecting cattle and the U.S. milk supply. Visit nationaldairyfarm.com/farm-biosecurity/ for more information.

This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on Dec. 12, 2022.

NMPF Urges Sped-Up FDA Approval of Climate Friendly Feed Additives

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

ARLINGTON, VA — NMPF called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use existing legal authority to modernize its regulations allowing for faster approval of animal-feed additives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, submitting comments to the agency today that highlighted the need for urgent action to enhance dairy’s role as a climate solution.

“Innovative and voluntary solutions are needed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including methane,” said Dr. Jamie Jonker, NMPF’s chief science officer, in the comments submitted today. “Enteric emissions directly from cows currently account for roughly one third of all GHG emissions from dairy farms and present an important area of opportunity for methane reductions. Feed composition changes can directly or indirectly reduce enteric emissions resulting from livestock.”

While animal-feed additives are a promising path toward a net-zero future for dairy as outlined in industry goals, the pace of their approval lags that of competitors such as the European Union due to current FDA processes. By streamlining bureaucracy and allowing feed-additives to be treated as foods rather than as drugs, the United States can maintain and advance its global leadership in sustainability, Jonker wrote.

Through the U.S. Dairy Net Zero Initiative, a collaboration across dairy organizations, dairy-farm research is advancing new technology and new market development opportunities to make sustainability practices more accessible and affordable to farms of all sizes, including enteric methane reduction.

“One of the greatest opportunities that exists for U.S. dairy farmers is their ability to provide real solutions to many of today’s biggest environmental challenges like GHG emissions,” Jonker wrote. “Embracing new practices and technologies is key to making America’s dairy farmers an environmental solution while providing wholesome and nutritious dairy products to the U.S. and the world.”

For more on how dairy is advancing its stewardship and best practices, visit the National Dairy FARM (Farmers Assuring Responsible Management) Program’s Environmental Stewardship page.

NMPF’s Bjerga on the Congressional Elections and Dairy’s Challenges

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

 

NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga details some of the policy and marketplace challenges U.S. dairy is striving to meet, regardless of the cloudy outcomes of Tuesday’s congressional elections, in an interview with RFD-TV. Opportunities to grow markets via sustainability, an adequate safety net in the upcoming farm bill, and sensible industry regulation all loom in 2023, with dairy well-positioned to make progress.

NMPF’s Bjerga on Annual Meeting, Dairy’s Challenges

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

 

NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga talks about some of the challenges dairy farmers face, and how they’re facing it together, in an interview with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. As NMPF members gather in Denver this week for the organization’s annual meeting, milk-pricing modernization, sustainability and stewardship, and international trade are all taking the spotlight.

NMPF’s Mulhern Speaks at Annual Meeting

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

 

NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern speaks at the organization’s annual meeting in Las Vegas, NV on Nov. 16.

FARM Program’s Yeiser Stepp on Rethinking Dairy Engagement

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

Emily Yeiser Stepp, NMPF’s vice president for the National Dairy FARM Program, discusses how 2020 changed the way dairy-sector engagement has pivoted into the virtual world. She speaks on RFD-TV.

https://www.rfdtv.com/story/43427310/rethinking-engagement-strategies-in-the-dairy-industry

NMPF Awarded USDA Grant to Advance On-farm Biosecurity

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The National Milk Producers Federation today was awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to develop and improve biosecurity on U.S. dairy farms.  

As one of two livestock industry organizations chosen along with 16 state animal health authorities and 14 land-grant universities, NMPF will use the $488,603 grant to implement and coordinate the Secure Milk Supply (SMS) plan and develop a biosecurity program area through the National Dairy FARM Program (FARM). The FARM Animal Care program places an emphasis on biosecurity as a key element of dairy herd health and the grant funding will allow for further prioritization.  

“The dairy industry has partnered with USDA for more than a decade on the Secure Milk Supply Plan. With this new funding, we are eager to continue and expand our work on biosecurity through integration with FARM,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “We applaud USDA’s work to enhance the prevention, preparedness, detection, and response to animal diseases that threaten the viability of U.S. dairy farms.” 

The grant is funded by the 2018 Farm Bill as part of an overall strategy to help prevent animal pests and diseases from entering the U.S. and reduce the spread and impact of potential disease incursions through advance planning and preparedness. APHIS will distribute funding through the National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP) as well as the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN).  

USDA has funded the NADPRP projects with the goal of individually and collectively addressing critical livestock biosecurity, large-scale depopulation and carcass disposal concerns in all major livestock industries across all U.S. regions. NMPF will apply the grant funding to advance biosecurity on dairy farms by partnering with stakeholders and experts including the Center for Food Security and Public Health at Iowa State University, dairy farmers, veterinarians, dairy cooperatives and processors, and state and federal animal health officials.  

Dairy Defined Podcast: Sustainability, in All Its Forms, Key to Dairy’s Future, Vold Says

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

On National Farmer’s Day, dairy farmer Suzanne Vold is highlighting dairy’s commitments to the environment and a net-zero future, noting that her colleagues are already effective stewards and are committed to doing more.

“We need to work with our partners in government. We need to work with partners in academia, dairy science departments, and agronomy departments and our colleges and universities. And we need to work with our cooperatives, the companies that process our milk into products to sell,” said Vold in the latest Dairy Defined podcast, released today. “But we have to start the work somewhere, and we have to start the work now.”

Vold, with her husband, brother-in-law and two part-time employees, runs Dorrich Dairy, a 400-cow, fourth-generation dairy farm in western Minnesota. In the podcast, she also discusses specific practices on her farm that save money and create potential revenues as well as improve water and soil health – as well as the importance of other initiatives important to dairy and agriculture, from the Dairy Margin Coverage program to rural broadband.

The full podcast is here. You can also find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,  SoundCloud and Google Play. Broadcast outlets may use the MP3 file. Please attribute information to NMPF.

NMPF Supports USDA Efforts to Modernize Animal ID and Disease Traceability Requirements

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The National Milk Producers Federation submitted comments supporting the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) proposal on the Use of Radio Frequency Identification Tags as Official Identification in Cattle and Bison. APHIS has proposed to require the use of official 840-RFID tags for all dairy cattle involved in interstate commerce starting Jan. 1, 2023.

“We commend USDA-APHIS for taking this next step in moving animal identification forward, with the use of RFID tags for official animal identification for dairy cattle,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “A national animal identification system can provide immediate access to relevant information in an animal disease or food safety crisis that could endanger the entire dairy chain, while protecting farmers’ privacy.”

The U.S. dairy industry has long advocated modernizing animal ID and disease traceability systems. Farmer organizations including NMPF, the American Jersey Cattle Association, Holstein Association USA, Inc., National Association of Animal Breeders, National Dairy Herd Information Association and Dairy Calf and Heifer Association formed a group called IDairy to collectively advance official mandatory animal identification to aid disease traceability.

IDairy in received a USDA-APHIS cooperative agreement on premise registration and animal ID education that propelled the use of RFID tags in the U.S. dairy industry. Since 2009, the National Dairy FARM Program: Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program has also recommend use of official 840-RFID tags for all dairy cattle.

Animal ID and disease traceability needs may be different for other livestock sectors, so NMPF encouraged APHIS to carefully consider comments from those other livestock industries when finalizing requirements and implementation timelines.