Britain says animals do not have foot-and-mouth disease
LONDON (AP) — Livestock on an English farm that were tested after showing signs of possible foot-and-mouth disease do not have it, Britain’s chief veterinarian said Saturday.
The result strengthens indications that the highly contagious livestock ailment has not spread beyond the small area where it was first discovered two weeks ago.
“The latest tests on the farm to the east of the surveillance zone are negative,” Chief Veterinary Officer Debby Reynolds said.
Reynolds announced late Thursday that cows in a second area of the southern England county of Surrey had shown “mild clinical signs of infections” and were being tested. Officials established an exclusion zone around a farm previously unlinked to the outbreak and some 10 miles from the two confirmed cases of the disease.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on Saturday lifted restrictions around the farm, near the village of Wotton.
British authorities are increasingly confident that they have prevented foot-and-mouth from spreading to livestock across the country, a development that could have devastated the rural economy. An epidemic in 2001 led to the slaughter of seven million animals and shut British meat out of world markets for months.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday that officials had “restricted the disease to a limited area of this country.
“The risk of it spreading out of these areas is low, if not negligible,” he said.
An interim epidemiology report on the outbreak has concluded that the disease probably spread by human movement from a research laboratory facility in Pirbright, about 30 miles southwest of London. The complex houses vaccine-maker Merial Animal Health – the British arm of U.S.-French pharmaceutical firm Merial Ltd. – and the government’s Institute of Animal Health.
Experts are still trying to determine exactly how the disease spread. Foot-and-mouth can be carried by wind and on the vehicles and clothes of people who come into contact with infected animals.
Animals on two farms near the lab complex tested positive for foot-and-mouth and were slaughtered. In all, about 500 animals have been killed on the two infected farms and – as a precaution – on three nearby properties. Company prepares to break ground on $90M plant FRANKFORT, Ind. (AP) — Indiana Clean Energy, LLC, plans to break ground this fall on a $90 million biodiesel plant that will turn soybeans into the alternative fuel.
Work on the 80 million-gallon plant will begin within the next 60 days at a 40-acre site at Frankfort’s industrial park, said Murray Gingrich, the company’s CEO. Work should be done by April. Although Indiana Clean Energy was formed in September 2005, the plant will be its first.
The site was chosen because it is close to Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM) and it has good access to railroad transportation and utilities. ADM will serve as the plant’s primary supplier.
Gingrich said the company is open to forming working relationships with other area growers. “Farmers are glad to see projects like this coming along,” he said.
The company will hire Clinton County residents during and after construction for a variety of positions in sales, administration and line production when operations begin, Gingrich said. Thirty-five high-paying positions will be open when the plant begins operations, and more may become available after the company’s planned expansion over the next years, he said.
Since the county Board of Zoning Appeals approved the project in June 2006, its progress has been mired by permit complications. Gingrich said the wait has made the upcoming construction date all the more exciting.
“We just can’t wait to start pushing dirt,” Gingrich said.
American Electric Power to buy power from wind farm
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — American Electric Power said last week that it will buy power from a wind farm in Indiana, part of the company’s long-term plan to reduce greenhouse gases.
Two AEP subsidiaries, Appalachian Power and Indiana Michigan Power, have signed 20-year agreements with Fowler Ridge Wind Farm. The wind energy farm in northwestern Indiana is expected to be running by the end of 2008, AEP said.
The company, one of the nation’s largest power generators, currently owns two wind farms in Texas. The Indiana farm is part of AEP green energy initiatives that include improvements at power plants, reforestation projects and a program to capture methane from livestock manure.
The company intends to gradually reduce, avoid or offset its greenhouse emissions to six percent below the average of its 1998-2001 emission levels by 2010, the company has said.
California co. plans wind farm DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A California energy company plans to create Iowa’s largest wind turbine farm, producing up to 300 megawatts of electricity near Adair.
Clipper Windpower, Inc., based in Carpinteria, Calif., says it has secured more than 2,000 acres in the Adair area and is seeking additional land for the project. The company plans to build the farm in phases, starting as early as 2009 or 2010.
Clipper’s announcement comes four months after Alliant Energy Corp. announced plans to develop the state’s largest wind farm, a 200-megawatt operation near Adair.
Clipper has other wind energy operations in Iowa, including a 200-employee wind turbine assembly plant in Cedar Rapids.
Case is defining ‘corn stover’ DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — When is cornfield residue stover and when is it stubble? That’s the question the Iowa Court of Appeals decided in ruling in favor of a farmer who sued his insurance company after it failed to cover fire damage to a field.
The case, which originated in Pottawattamie County District Court, involved Kurt and Caroline Stamp and Western Iowa Mutual Insurance Co. The Stamps had a farm insurance policy in effect when a fire that started on a neighboring property spread onto their farm field on March 6, 2005.
The Stamps had harvested their crop the previous fall, but stalks, cobs and leaves remaining in the field were damaged. They asked for damages for the crop residue, which they said an expert witness would indicate had market value at around $160,000.
The insurance company said the stalks, cobs and leaves in the field were stubble, not covered under the policy.
The appeals court disagreed with local ruling and said an insurance company has a duty to define policy exclusions in clear and explicit terms. The court said in cases of dispute, it routinely uses a dictionary to determine ordinary meanings.
The court sent the case back to district court, where a jury will decide how much the Stamps can recover from the insurance company. This farm news was published in the Aug. 22, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
