Practical Tools to Protect Canadian Livestock from Foot and Mouth Disease

Jan 30, 2025

Beef producers feel the responsibility of keeping their herds and those in contact with their cattle safe, and they appreciate practical tools that support their disease prevention practices. When it comes to biosecurity practices on beef cattle operations, limiting hazards and appropriately responding with good management are key in disease prevention. These practices ultimately protect the herd and the Canadian livestock industry from the animal health and economic impacts of foreign animal diseases, including Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).

To increase awareness of available tools for farmers and ranchers, a collaborative effort between the BCRC and Animal Health Canada (AHC) is currently underway ensuring that prevention and emergency response resources are being tailored specifically to the needs of Canadian beef producers.

Foot and Mouth Disease is a highly infectious virus that has serious consequences for the beef industry and populations of beef cattle and other cloven-hoofed animals worldwide, including severe economic and animal health impacts. Canada currently has an FMD-free without vaccination trade status and maintaining this status is the responsibility of all sectors within the industry.

Everyday Biosecurity Practices That Protect Cattle
Daily habits go a long way to reduce or prevent the spread of disease. Understanding the every-day risks of introducing disease to a beef cattle herd helps protect the animals and the people who care for them.

It is helpful to consider potential ways disease could enter your herd, including:

shared fencelines,
buying replacement heifers or bulls,
borrowing trailers or other equipment,
outsourcing farm work or
hosting visitors from another farm or other countries.

Implementing biosecurity strategies that work on your farm can stop disease from entering, spreading and leaving your herd:

Cleaning and disinfecting protocols
Good management techniques, including vaccination protocols and animal husbandry to keep animals at a low risk of infection
Good hygiene practices, including working with animals with the least exposure to pathogens to the animals with the greatest exposure to pathogens
Quarantine protocols for animals leaving or entering the operation
Hygiene protocols for people, animals and equipment leaving or entering the premises

On a broader scale, the biosecurity measures you implement are essential to keeping the Canadian Livestock industry thriving and free of reportable diseases and trade-limiting diseases including FMD.

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Video: Turning Plant Defense Into a Management Strategy

Turning Plant Defense Into a Management Strategy

Understanding how a plant responds to stress is one thing.

Using that knowledge to make better management decisions is another.

Systemic acquired resistance, or SAR, is the plant's more direct defense response. When stress or infection occurs, the plant begins signaling throughout its system and preparing defensive compounds.

But if we know that response exists, can we help prepare the plant before the stress arrives?

The answer starts with understanding what triggers the response and what the plant needs to carry it out.

The Trigger and the Fuel

Salicylic acid plays an important role in triggering the SAR pathway.

Think of it as turning the truck on.

The engine may be running, but it still needs fuel to do the work.

In this case, manganese plays an important role in supporting the enzyme systems involved in the plant's defensive response.

This makes manganese status an important part of the conversation. Whether a producer is using tissue testing, sap analysis, or simply scouting for visible deficiency symptoms, the goal is to make sure the plant has adequate manganese available.

Manganese is required in relatively small amounts, but that does not make its role small.

If the plant receives a signal to defend itself but lacks the nutrition needed to support that response, it may struggle to carry out the process efficiently.

The trigger matters.

The fuel matters too.

Prepare Before the Stress Arrives

The best time to think about stress management is before the plant is overwhelmed.

Once a crop is already struggling, management can quickly turn into a game of catch-up.

This is similar to nitrogen management. Once a plant becomes severely deficient, correcting the problem does not necessarily erase the time and yield potential already lost.

Plant defense can work the same way.

Low-rate, targeted approaches designed to support the SAR pathway may fit best ahead of an expected stress event rather than after significant damage has already occurred.

That requires producers to think about predictable stress.

We may not know exactly what the weather will do tomorrow, but we generally know summer heat is coming. We know certain field conditions increase disease pressure. We know a herbicide application can temporarily stress a crop as the plant processes the chemistry.

Even a properly timed and labeled herbicide application can create a temporary response in the plant.

That does not mean the herbicide is bad.

Weeds can create significantly more yield loss than the temporary stress caused by controlling them.

The question is not whether we should eliminate every stressor.

The question is whether we can better prepare the plant to manage necessary and predictable stress.

Not All Stress Is Bad

Stress is a normal part of plant growth.

A perfectly stress-free environment does not exist in the field.

In fact, some stress is necessary for normal plant development. A plant responds to wind, temperature, moisture, sunlight, and countless other environmental signals throughout the season.

The environment is stress.

The plant's job is to manage it.

Problems begin when the stress load becomes greater than the plant's ability to respond.

Extreme heat, drought, high salt concentrations, disease pressure, and even certain management practices can add to that load.

This is where understanding SAR becomes useful.

Instead of waiting until the plant is visibly struggling, producers can begin identifying periods when stress is likely and make management decisions around those windows.

ISR Starts With the Soil

While SAR is a more direct defense response, induced systemic resistance, or ISR, brings the conversation back to soil health.

The longevity of a farm is closely connected to the health of its soil.

Carbon plays a major role because it supports biological life within the soil. Bacteria, fungi, and other organisms interact with plant roots and influence how the plant grows, accesses nutrients, and prepares for stress.

This is why soil health cannot be reduced to one product or one application.

It is a system.

Keeping living plants in the field longer can support biological activity. Cover crops may fit some operations. Better water management can improve soil conditions.