More Avian Flu In Poultry In 6 States; Ontario Farms Also Hit

Mar 31, 2022

Avian flu outbreaks expanded in six already-affected states, especially in the Midwest, according to the latest announcements from federal and state health officials.

avian flu

Also, Canada reported two outbreaks on Ontario farms, the first since the virus struck flocks in eastern provinces earlier this year.

Commercial farms, backyard birds affected

The highly pathogenic Eurasian H5N1 strain continues to affect both commercial operations and small backyard holdings. In the latest developments, Minnesota and South Dakota both reported new outbreaks in commercial poultry.

The Minnesota Board of Animal Health (MBAH) reported two more outbreaks involving turkey producers, raising the state's overall outbreak total to six. One of the new outbreaks struck a farm in Kandiyohi County, about 67 miles west of the Twin Cities, housing 40,000 turkeys, and the other involved a farm in Lac Qui Parle County in Minnesota that has 23,000 turkeys.

South Dakota confirmed 5 more outbreaks, bringing its total to 17, according to an update from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Four occurred at commercial turkey farms in three counties: Clark, Hutchinson, and McPherson, all in the eastern half of the state. Taken together, the farms have 171,200 birds.

The virus also struck a backyard flock in Bon Homme County in the southeastern part of the state, which houses 150 birds.

Meanwhile, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, and New York reported more outbreaks in backyard flocks. Kansas reported a fourth outbreak in backyard birds, this time in Mitchell County in the north central part of the state. Maine reported its ninth outbreak in backyard birds, this time in newly affected Washington County in the easternmost region on the Atlantic shore.

Missouri reported its sixth outbreak, which struck a flock in Gentry County in the northwest region. And New York reported its fifth outbreak, the third in Suffolk County, which covers the eastern half of Long Island.

In related developments, APHIS reported 10 more detections from wild bird testing. They include the recently announced first case in Pennsylvania, involving a bald eagle, as well as more waterfowl positives from Iowa, New York, and South Dakota. So far, APHIS has reported 482 H5N1 detections, mostly involving waterfowl.

Virus strikes Ontario, Philippine farms

In announcements yesterday and today, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) reported two H5N1 outbreaks at farms in southern Ontario. The CFIA had previously reported four outbreaks in poultry flocks in Nova Scotia, starting in early February, as well as two flocks in Newfoundland and Labrador in events that occurred in late December and January.

Last week, Ontario's agriculture ministry reported that a red-tailed hawk that was suffering from neurologic symptoms tested positive for H5N1.

In other developments outside of the United States, the Philippines reported several highly pathogenic H5N1 outbreaks in poultry. In a Mar 25 notification from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), officials detailed four more outbreaks, which struck two duck farms and two backyard locations, all in Sultan Kudarat Province. The outbreaks began from Feb 10 to Mar 11, killing 69 of 3,205 susceptible birds.

Source : umn.edu

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”