By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent LANSING, Mich. — Michigan will not receive TB-free status until the earliest of October 2008.
A report issued in late May of this year by the USDA pointed to multiple problems with the Michigan Department of Agriculture’s (MDA) efforts to eradicate TB; but not everyone at the MDA thinks the USDA is being reasonable.
“The disease has never moved out of the area,” said an MDA official who is familiar with the TB eradication effort, but who asked to be unnamed. “In the MDA’s mind it was time to get free status. Our producers know what to do. They aren’t sneaking things across the border. The MDA wants to keep people in business.”
According to a published report, State Veterinarian Steven Halstead stated, “USDA would prefer that we have a system like Mexico’s, where to move between states, cattle haulers are stopped at gates by armed guards. Our program has a lot of components in place for tracking animals, and they are effective. But nothing is as secure as a guy at a gate with a gun.”
According to the unnamed MDA official, the reason for Halstead’s comment about Mexico is that program review teams that work for the USDA review many programs, including ones in Mexican states. TB eradication efforts there do include armed personnel guarding against the unlawful movement of cattle.
“We trust our producers more,” the official said.
The Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) would not comment about the unnamed official’s charges.
Karen Eggert, a spokeswoman for APHIS, said that the MDA is “moving forward.”
“We have confidence in the direction that they’re moving in,” Eggert said.
John Tilden, a veterinarian and epidemiologist at the MDA who was tapped to head up efforts to respond to USDA’s demands, sounded a note of conciliation: “It’s not USDA’s fault,” he said. “We’re partners.”
The goal is to help Michigan achieve TB-free status in the southern portion of the state. The Upper Peninsula is already designated TB-free, with bovine TB found only in the northeast part of the Lower Peninsula.
Late in June state and federal officials signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on how to proceed from here, so that the state does not lose its split-state status, and to increase the chances that it will achieve TB-free status.
According to Tilden part of the problem was that the USDA and MDA weren’t communicating effectively. While the USDA saw its guidelines for action as requirements that had to be met, state officials saw them as recommendations.
The unnamed MDA official stated that USDA reviewed what MDA was doing many times, but it was only early this year that it decided that its recommendations were, in fact, requirements.
According to Tilden APHIS is now requiring MDA to document all animals that are moved from one TB zone to another within the state. It’s requiring increased testing of animals, and wants to minimize contact between wild deer and cattle.
According to Tilden the next chance his team will have to get a USDA review is October 2007. If everything is deemed to be acceptable, conditions must be maintained for at least 12 months, after which the southern part of the state could be declared TB-free.
“We’ve worked really hard to get this far,” Tilden said. “Eradication isn’t for the fainthearted.”
This farm news was published in the Aug. 1, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
