Foot-and-Mouth Fears Lead State’s Ranchers to Close Gates

Spooked by the spread of foot-and-mouth disease in Europe, many of California’s ranches and university farm programs are closing their gates to visitors, and some animals are being kept out of livestock shows.

Harris Ranch, the state’s largest beef operation with more than 100,000 head of cattle, has stopped giving tours of its giant feedlot in Coalinga, which typically attracts two Greyhound busloads of visitors a week.

“There may only be a small risk [of foot-and-mouth showing up in California], but there’s no use in us even taking a small risk,” said John Harris, chairman of Harris Farms.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo has decided to bar international visitors, including two tours from Denmark and the Netherlands that were scheduled this month, from its two working farms, which house more than 2,000 cows, pigs and sheep.

And UC Davis, which typically gets more than 1,500 visitors a year through its international agriculture program, will not give tours of its barns to visitors who have been in the country for less than five days.

The statewide lock-down started in earnest last week, when farm bureau officials in Sonoma and Marin counties asked farmers not to bring their cows, sheep and pigs to the annual Ag Day celebrations, which introduce thousands of elementary school kids in those areas to agriculture.

Foot-and-mouth disease is not believed to be a human health risk, but it can devastate farmers by sharply reducing meat and milk production in their herds. It also is highly contagious, spreading to cloven-hoofed animals not only through feed, hay and manure but on clothes, shoes and even the wind. And because it spreads so quickly, entire herds and flocks must be destroyed to stop it. Veterinarians say vaccines are not effective in guarding against all strains of the disease.

In related developments Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, meeting with European Union Commissioner David Byrne, said the ban on imported meat from the European Union would not be lifted until the disease is contained. “We will continue reviewing our policies but remain concerned about the spread of [foot-and-mouth] within the EU and the risk of introduction into the United States,” Veneman said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is redirecting 150 inspectors to critical ports of entry and is doubling the number of dog teams at airports to check incoming flights and passengers, the agency said. USDA has 2,000 inspectors at airports and ports and a team of 450 cooperating veterinarians on call to answer questions and assist farmers.

Although no cases of foot-and-mouth disease have been found in the U.S., farmers across California are restricting access to their farms, and some might not bring their animals to livestock shows this year.

Jack Hamm, who runs a 1,500-cow dairy farm near Lodi, said he and most other ranchers are erring on the side of caution by not giving tours and stopping visitors before they get close to the animals.

“We are cutting back on visitors and asking them where they’ve been,” Hamm said. Even feed and equipment salespeople, he said, are being directed to the office rather than out to the sheds.

Precautions such as restricting visitors and requiring showers and disinfection are common in the poultry and pork businesses, in which large numbers of animals in close quarters are susceptible to fast-spreading disease. But these measures aren’t as common in the cattle and dairy industries, despite the large numbers of salespeople, farmers and truckers that make stops from farm to farm.

However, that could change, scientists say, as increased global trade and travel have made animal diseases such as “mad-cow,” foot-and-mouth and other pathogens a shared concern.

“Biosecurity is the name of the game in controlling risk,” said Andy Thulin, who heads Cal Poly’s animal sciences department. “It’s just a matter of time before people in this industry become more cognizant of it.”

Not everyone agrees. Because California successfully has protected itself from a foot-and-mouth outbreak for more than 70 years, there are some who believe that import bans are enough to control the problem.

Britain’s foot-and-mouth problem, they say, has been tracked to a more direct cause: meat from an infected country being fed to hogs on an English farm.

That is unlikely to occur in this country, said Michael Marsh, chief executive of Western United Dairymen in Modesto. He said the U.S. has managed for many years to keep out foot-and-mouth from other countries that have had epidemics.

Marsh added that the cost of disinfecting every visitor to farms could be prohibitive.

“The key here is we don’t have” foot-and-mouth, said John Braly of the California Cattlemen’s Assn. “But we need to make sure we’re prepared on all fronts.”