National Pork Board staff recently facilitated a foreign animal disease (FAD) exercise to practice and troubleshoot a simulated response to a mock disease outbreak. Over 40 people from academia, production, the US Department of Agriculture, the veterinarian community, and Iowa Pork Producers Association teamed up during the full-day event hosted by the Swine Medicine Education Center staff at Iowa State University.

“The value of this exercise is continuous practice since regulation, technology, and stakeholder awareness evolve. The more we prepare, the quicker we can respond to an actual incident,” said Dr Tyler Bauman, herd veterinarian for The Maschhoffs, LLC.

Participants practiced every procedure in the coordinated response plan based on location and the outbreak’s status to identify, understand, and address their knowledge gaps.

“The buildup of the mock incident and protocols instructed were cohesive since each stakeholder at the drill shared a wealth of knowledge in their role, rather than filling an unknown position. Plus, there were real-time insights from the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreak that state veterinarians could share,” Bauman said.

To help your producer clients be better prepared for an FAD outbreak, urge them to participate in the Secure Pork Supply plan and get an AgView account. More information is available at securepork.org and porkcheckoff.org/agview, respectively.

Cybersecurity tips for your business

As part of the National Pork Board’s recent Pork Management Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, attendees heard from several security experts who are urging everyone involved in agri-business to make cybersecurity a top priority for their businesses. This includes pork producers and swine veterinarians. They advised that attendees should set up multifactor authentication on your accounts; update your software and turn on automatic updates; and think before you click since more than 90% of successful cyber attacks start with a phishing email. Finally, they advised assigning strong passwords and using a password manager. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned the food and agriculture sector that ransomware actors may be more active now than ever. Agricultural cooperatives are of particular concern during planting and harvest seasons, which can disrupt operations, cause economic loss, and negatively impact the food supply chain.

As senior vice president of management liability and client experience for Marsh & McLennan Agency’s Upper Midwest Region, Dan Hanson says cybersecurity is about 80% to 90% of what they do for client risk mitigation today. “Cyber attacks are a crime of opportunity,” Hanson says. “They are looking for weakness wherever they can find it. That can make for a systemic impact such as the food chain. It is important to take steps today to protect yourself because it is not a matter of if they will strike, but when.”

For more information on these plans, visit fcc.gov/sites/default/files/cyberplanner.pdf.

Producers can now be trained to become Certified Swine Sample Collectors

Producers can now be trained and certified to properly collect samples for diagnostic and surveillance purposes through a classroom and hands-on curriculum developed with funding from the US Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program. Spanish translations of the materials are also available thanks to funding from the Pork Checkoff.

Category II accredited veterinarians provide training as part of the Certified Swine Sample Collector Training Program. Training for proper sample collection is an important step in preparing for a potential foreign animal disease outbreak. Recertification is required annually. For more information, visit secureporksupply.org/cssc or contact Dr Pam Zaabel at pzaabel@pork.org.