Current Cattle Markets Daily Headlines January 19, 2021

americancattlemarkets

5 years ago

Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak spreads further in Namibia

Last week, Namibia’s ministry of agriculture reported another outbreak of food-and-mouth disease in cattle located in the north regions of Oshana and Ohangwena.
Movement of all live cloven-hoofed animals into and out of the regions has been banned.
- Additionally, the government has banned the transportation of other potentially infectious commodities out of the infected areas.
  - These items include hides, skins, game trophies and plant materials.
- The first of recent FMD outbreaks began back at the end of September when the disease was discovered in the Ndiyona constituency in the northern region of Kavango East.
  - Since then, eight of the country’s fourteen regions have been affected by the restrictions on movement.
- Namibia is famous for their free-range, hormone-free beef that has found its way into the Chinese, European Union and American markets, but with recent outbreaks of FMD, there is concern that a cattle export ban may be implemented.

Kent Bacus, NCBA’s Senior Director of International Trade and Market Access, believes that the continued presence of FMD outbreaks in Namibia is something that should concern U.S. cattle producers.
Namibia is separated into two zones; the northern zone where FMD outbreaks continue to occur and exports to the U.S. banned, and the southern zone that is FMD free and is designated as safe for export.
- To prevent the spread of FMD from the northern to the southern zones of Namibia, the country has a cordon fence and a buffer zone.
NCBA supports research to develop protocols and determine the economic impact of regionalization of states or an area to establish risk avoidance for animal diseases.
- Furthermore, Bacus and NCBA realize that FMD is a highly contagious disease that would devastate the U.S. cattle industry, thus the organization continues to support USDA’s efforts to prevent our herd from exposure.

According to Tom Hart, former Waterloo Tyson plant manager, no one bet on how many plant workers would get sick with coronavirus.
- Hart, along with six other managers were fired back in December after an independent investigation was launched into allegations that a betting pool was established around how many plant workers would get sick with Covid-19.
Hart and Don Merschbrock, former Waterloo Tyson night manager, claim that the pool never existed in the way it has been portrayed by the media.
- The men admit that there was a spontaneous $5.00 office pool, but it was never about betting on how many employees would get the virus.
Merschbrock and Hart say that the pool only lasted ten minutes, and was a simple conversation among managers regarding the completion of a mitigation effort inside the plant.
- Hart claims that the managers believed their efforts in the plant would be more successful than what was being done throughout the community at the time.
  - Merschbrock said that the pool was about the plant having fewer cases than the community at the time.
- Tyson’s Waterloo plant is their largest pork processing facility, employing 2,800 workers. Last spring, more than a thousand workers tested positive for the virus and four died.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced the selection of 67 members to serve on seven agricultural trade advisory committees.
The Agricultural Policy Advisor Committee (APAC) is made up of senior representatives from the U.S. agriculture community. These representatives provide input to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on trade policy issues.
- Those newly appointed or reappointed to the APAC are Julie Anna Potts, North American Meat Institute and Collin Woodall, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
The Agricultural Technical Advisory Committees (ATACs) provide technical advice and guidance from the perspective of their particular product sectors.
- Those named to the ATAC include Kent Bacus, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Kimberly Ratcliff, Caney Creek Ranch, Michael Schumpp, North American Meat Institute, Kent Swisher, National Renderers Association, Warren Gfeller, Stranger Valley Ranch and Rachel Cumberbatch, Animal Health Institute.
This group of appointed individuals will serve until 2025.