Weekly livestock news: November 30, 2020

Meat plants tied to 6-8% of early COVID-19 cases: study

Livestock processing plants “may act as transmission vectors” of the coronavirus into surrounding communities, new research shows. The researchers estimated plants were associated with 6-8% of COVID-19 cases nationwide during the early months of the pandemic. “Ensuring both public health and robust essential supply chains may require an increase in meatpacking oversight and potentially a shift toward more decentralized, smaller-scale meat production,” the researchers said in the paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We estimate the total excess COVID-19 cases and deaths associated with proximity to livestock plants to be 236,000 to 310,000 (6% to 8% of all U.S. cases) and 4,300 to 5,200 (3% to 4% of all U.S. deaths), respectively, as of July 21, 2020, with the vast majority likely related to community spread outside these plants,” they said. Successful Farming reports.

JBS to pay COVID-related health care costs for employees

JBS USA announced it has amended its health care plan to cover 100% of costs associated with a COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment for employees and their dependents who are enrolled in the plan, AgWeb reports. This coverage is in addition to free COVID-19 testing that’s been available since March and will retroactively cover costs incurred since March 1, according to a JBS release. If an employee or their dependent incurred eligible out-of-pocket expenses related to COVID-19 since March 1, they will be reimbursed the cost. Going forward, enrollees won’t pay a deductible or co-insurance, and their Health Reimbursement Account funds won’t be used to cover any of the cost, according to the company.

ASF, China will drive global protein markets in 2021: Rabobank

African swine fever and China will be major drivers of the global protein industries in 2021, according to Rabobank’s Global Animal Protein Outlook 2021. ASF and how countries—most importantly China and Vietnam—recover from it are the “biggest change driver in global animal protein,” the report said, adding that China’s initial recovery from ASF dominates the pork outlook. Pork production is expected to grow faster than other species in 2021, largely because of the ASF recovery in these two countries. “In 2021, we expect the ongoing recovery of the herd inventory, which will exceed 80% of pre-ASF levels,” the report said, and China’s pork production is expected to grow strongly in 2021. Feed Strategy reports.

American Egg Board releases new strategic plan as demand for eggs grows

The American Egg Board will begin implementing an ambitious new strategic vision and five-year plan that was approved by its board in September. The plan includes creation of an innovation center and an advanced insights hub, designed to be critical resources for the industry, Feedstuffs reports. Egg sales have been increasing since before the pandemic, about 2% per year. Sales spiked at the beginning of the pandemic, and while they’ve leveled off, they’re still about 11% higher on top of the 2% annual increase, said Emily Metz, AEB president and CEO. “We expect this trend to continue as long as conditions persist and people are preparing most or all of their meals at home,” she said.

Facial recognition technology can help track cattle, bears

Developers are working on facial recognition technology for animals, saying it’s a relatively cheap and non-invasive way to track them. CNN reports on two of those new projects, one for grizzly bears and one for cattle. Kansas rancher Joe Hoagland is developing the cattle tracing app, called CattleTracs. He said it will enable anyone to snap pictures of cattle that will be stored along with GPS coordinates and the date of the photo in an online database. Subsequent photos of the same animal will be matched with the earlier photographs, helping track the animal over time. Beef cattle pass through many different places and under the supervision of many people during their lives, he said, and a lack of tracking makes it difficult to investigate diseases that can harm cattle and people. Hoagland expects the app to be available by the end of the year.

Lasers could help prevent avian flu in free-range flocks, research shows

Lasers could be an effective way to prevent avian influenza from being introduced into free-range poultry flocks, new research shows. Speaking during an International Egg Commission webinar, Dr. Armin Elbers, senior epidemiologist at Wageningen University and Research, noted that research has shown poultry on free-range layer farms have a higher risk of infection from contact with water contaminated by wild birds. “Currently, we are or have been working on a farm with an outdoor facility that has been infected by low path avian influenza several times within the last years, so we have made a research design where we are actually counting wild bird visits to the outdoor facility—during time periods with and without the laser in operation,” Elbers said. Preliminary results show it’s been successful in keeping migratory birds out, WattAgNet reports.