Micheal Clements, NAFB News Service

Agriculture groups are urging the Department of Agriculture to move quickly to establish a Foot-and-Mouth Disease vaccine bank. The National Pork Producers Council, National Milk Producers Federation, National Corn Growers Association and Iowa State University, made the joint call during a Tuesday press event. Recognizing the steps USDA has taken to establish the bank, the groups called for “expedient use of mandatory funding included in the 2018 farm bill to purchase the volume of vaccines required to effectively contain and eradicate an FMD outbreak.” The groups say USDA currently does not have access to enough vaccines to avoid “devastating economic consequences,” should an outbreak occur. FMD is an infectious viral disease that affects cloven-hooved animals, including cattle, pigs and sheep. Iowa State University research predicts an outbreak would result in $128 billion in losses for the beef and pork sectors, $44 billion and $25 billion, respectively, to corn and soybean farmers, and job losses of more than 1.5 million across U.S. agriculture over ten years.