The spring migratory season brings with it the renewed threat of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI. Dudley Hoskins, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, is reminding farmers and others to take all necessary precautions.
“We’re asking all of our producer partners, whether it’s layers or broilers or turkey or dairy or any other adjacent production system, please be vigilant. We need sound biosecurity practices. It’s not just what’s happening on that one facility, there’s risk of lateral transmissions.”
The H5N1 strain of avian influenza is present in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in U.S. domestic birds and dairy cattle. Hoskins asks farmers to lean on USDA’s APHIS experts for guidance and help in preventing spread.
“We have a number of different tools, wildlife biosecurity assessments, different audits we can help them with. Some of those are voluntary. We have different resources available to producers if they want to mitigate or address some of the biosecurity vulnerabilities. So please go to the APHIS website, look up those resources, tell us what we can do to be helpful to you, but biosecurity is paramount.”
That web address is aphis.usda.gov.