CMi
AgriTrade Bulletin
News, information and commentary on the latest topics in the international agriculture industry. The first in a series of regular e-bulletins from NSF-CMi.
NSF-CMI COMMENT
The long and convoluted process of harmonising the UK’s national farm standards finally drew to a close in April when the new Red Tractor Farm Assurance standards went live. With the standards now tidied up to remove previous anomalies, the challenge now is to ensure the standards continue to evolve to meet the increasing range and diversity of consumer and stakeholder concerns in key areas like disease risk management (biosecurity), animal welfare and sustainability
Contents:
STANDARDS & CERTIFICATION
1.Harmonisation of the six UK Assured Food Standards (Red Tractor) farm assurance schemes
2.New fertiliser security scheme
ANIMAL HEALTH & WELFARE
3.Good bio-security is the key to reducing incidence of bovine TB
4. US Homeland Security renews animal disease centres
5. World faces epidemiological transition as emerging and re-emerging animal diseases are a growing problem for public health
6. Canadian Swine Health Board to launch national biosecurity benchmarking study
7. Cargill to adopt video auditing at turkey plants
RISK MANAGEMENT
8. New health & safety risk assessment for farms
SUSTAINABILITY
9. What does sustainable agriculture mean to you?
10. Dutch focus on carbon neutral pig farming
STANDARDS & CERTIFICATION
1. Harmonisation of the six UK Assured Food Standards (Red Tractor) farm assurance schemes came into effect on 1 April, 2010.
Major changes have been made to the way some of the AFS schemes must be run and all now share a more common approach to standards interpretation.
New standards manuals can be downloaded from the NSF-CMi website at
www.nsf-cmi.com/publications.asp?pubcat_id=3§ion=publications
The most significant change for most participants will be that evidence of corrective action for non-conformances must be submitted within 28 days of the assessment. This requirement has been in place for many years in the beef & lamb, chicken, pig and produce schemes, but its effect will be felt more keenly in the dairy and cereal schemes where the deadline for receipt of evidence of corrective action has now been reduced quite dramatically. The other main change affecting cereal farmers is the ending of harvest specific stickers and instead, as in the beef and lamb scheme, stickers will be issued at membership renewal time and have an expiry date 12 months hence.
The key scheme rule changes are:
• Scheme membership terminated if payment not made within 28 days of renewal date. (Otherwise, producers will start the certification process from scratch as a new member.)
• Certification/ stickers will be renewed for the following year on payment at renewal time.
• Certification suspended if evidence of corrective action not received within 28 days of assessment.
• Scheme membership terminated if evidence of corrective actions are not received within 3 months of the date of suspension. (Producers can re-apply but must start the certification process from scratch as a new member.)
[Source: NSF-CMi]
2. New Fertiliser Security scheme. NSF-CMi launched its Fertiliser Security Standard in January 2010. This scheme provides companies involved in the fertiliser supply industry with a credible alternative to the FIAS scheme, thus providing some much needed competition in this area. The standard is currently awaiting approval from DEFRA. It will dovetail nicely with GTAS (GAFTA Trade Assurance Scheme) enabling companies who are already GTAS assured to add Fertiliser Security to their certification process and therefore take advantage of the savings in both cost and time that this can bring.
For more information on the scheme please contact Paul Adams on 07775 575829 or paul.adams@nsf-cmicertification.com
[Source: NSF-CMi]
ANIMAL HEALTH & WELFARE
3. Good Bio-security is the key to reducing incidence of bovine TB
NSF-CMi Certification has recently been working with the North Wales bTB Eradication Board on their risk measurement and quantification project. This two year project involves a survey of on-farm bio-security practices on more than 100 farms with cattle in the Wrexham area.
The so-called ‘Wrexham Intensive Treatment Area’ was chosen because, up until recently, bovine TB has been relatively uncommon there and the disease is not as firmly established as in other parts of Wales, such as the South West or the border with England. Good herd bio-security can reduce the risk of clean herds becoming infected and given the TB history of the area, it was felt that improvements in bio-security would have a greater impact to reduce incidence of the disease than they might in areas where the disease had already become endemic.
The participating farms were selected by veterinary practices with clients within the Intensive Treatment Area, with the vets undertaking the survey and providing advice on where improvements in bio-security could be made. NSF-CMi Certification managed the process, using expert opinion, to generate the content for the survey questionnaire that included the following points:
• Maintaining a closed herd where possible
• Preventing contact with neighbouring herds
• Minimising contact between cattle and badgers
• Preventing access of badgers to cattle housing and feed stores.
In addition to managing the creation of the questions, NSF-CMi Certification provided the vets with the software and handheld computers to undertake the survey, trained them in the use of the software and undertook initial analysis of the results. The survey will be repeated again this year and the two sets of results compared.
[Source: NSF-CMi]
4. US Homeland Security Renews Animal Disease Centres
Efforts in the US to protect the nation from potentially catastrophic animal diseases – some of which are transmissible to humans – will continue with a $21 million package from the US Department of Homeland Security to Texas A&M University and Kansas State University.
The monies will support the Homeland Security department’s Center of Excellence for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense at the universities through 2016.
During the next six years, the FAZD Center will co-lead the Homeland Security department’s zoonotic and animal disease programme with the Kansas State University’s Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases.
The Center will focus on developing information and analysis systems designed to provide decision makers with tools to manage foreign animal and zoonotic disease outbreaks. It will also continue work on biological systems and education programmes.
“Zoonotic and animal health issues have real-world implications for public health and the economy,” said Dr Tara O’Toole, Homeland Security Undersecretary for Science and Technology, in a news release. “This award reflects the national need to leverage the country’s top university and intellectual capital to address our security needs.”
“I can think of few things more important than supporting Texas A&M’s work to protect Americans from biological warfare and the spread of infectious diseases such as Avian flu and Foot-and-Mouth disease,” said US Representative Chet Edwards, D-Texas.
“The work of the centers is important because zoonotic diseases, such as H1N1 flu, spread between humans and animals,” said Dr Mark Hussey, vice chancellor and dean of agriculture and life sciences at Texas A&M. Zoonotic diseases such as H1N1 flu are transmissible between humans and animals. Foreign animal diseases are those which are not found in the US but could be introduced naturally, accidentally or by terrorist attack.
As 13 per cent of all the jobs in the nation are dependent on agriculture, the nation's economy could be severely damaged by such diseases.
Texas A&M and Kansas State researchers will focus their efforts in four areas over the next six years:
- Development of vaccines to counter diseases that could cause catastrophic human illness or seriously impact the economy.
- Development of rapid diagnostic methods for identification and detection of foreign animal, emerging and/or zoonotic diseases.
- Development of models to simulate disease spread and impact.
- Development of educational programmes designed to train first responders and producers in recognition and control of these diseases.
[Source: extract from ThePigSite News Desk, Monday, March 29, 2010.To see the full article, go to http://www.thepigsite.com/swinenews/23461/homeland-security-renews-animal-disease-centres ]
The number of animal diseases affecting humans is set to escalate as the world undergoes a new epidemiological transition, say researchers this month in BioScience. Experts say that “dramatic” changes to the environment have sparked lasting alterations to human disease patterns.
“We appear to be undergoing a distinct change in global disease ecology,” writes Montira Pongsiri, of the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC, and colleagues. “The recent emergence of infectious diseases appears to be driven by globalization and ecological disruption.”
A similar shift in disease patterns, a phenomenon known as ‘epidemiological transition,’ occurred during the Industrial Revolution. In that transition the number of people affected by infectious diseases plummeted in the developed world and life expectancy lengthened, while the rise of manufacturing and pollution levels increased the risk of new diseases including cancer, allergies, and birth defects.
This time, scientists see changes in land use, farming practices, and climate behind the escalating numbers of zoonotic disease outbreaks in humans.
Reviewing the evidence for transition
Pongsiri and colleagues reached this conclusion with a review of studies about five emerging and re-emerging diseases. For each disease they looked at how changes in biodiversity at the genetic, molecular, species and habitat level affected the risk and incidence of human disease. They argue that the loss of animal and plant species, together with the destruction of their habitats, brings people into closer contact with animal diseases, particularly those transmitted by vectors such as mosquitoes.
Jan Slingenbergh, from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, says there is mounting evidence, but as yet no scientific proof, pointing to a rise in the emergence of new diseases. At least 45 diseases that have jumped the human-animal species barrier have been reported to UN agencies over the last two decades, he says.
This rise has been brought about by changes in agriculture, land use, and the earth’s climate, which have in turn reduced biodiversity. This impacts how diseases circulate at the animal-human interface, explains Slingenbergh.
Rabies and vector-borne diseases
Over the past few decades, the rabies virus has spilled over from dog populations into other animal species and, increasingly, humans, says Slingenbergh. Rabies has now been reported in racoons in the USA, as well as kudu antelopes in Namibia. This year, the virus caused human infections for the first time in Bali, Indonesia.
The UN has seen a “notable” increase in the number of countries asking for assistance to control the disease in dog populations this year, adds Slingenbergh. Preventing rabies transmission between dogs reduces the risk to people, who can pick up the virus through the bite of an infected animal.
Meanwhile malaria incidence is likely to increase as a warming climate means the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite can extend their geographical reach, say Pongsiri and colleagues. For another mosquito-borne disease, West Nile fever, the number of different bird species plays a part in the risk of human disease. Research in the USA has suggested that people living in areas with the lowest diversity of bird species are at the highest risk of getting infected with the West Nile virus.
Evidence also suggests that the risk of contracting Lyme disease, which is carried by ticks, is highest in areas of forest with few species and fragmented landscape, add the authors.
Farming and flu
In addition to climate and land-use changes, Slingenbergh says changes in animal farming have altered the circulation of zoonotic pathogens and influenza. In countries like China, higher demand for poultry meat has led to a massive rise in populations of domestic wildfowl, he explains. In Southern China alone, there are now around 700 million domestic ducks.
In the case of flu, a growing number of viral subtypes have moved from wild animals into farmed and domestic waterfowl, which live in closer contact with humans. A similar expansion in the number of flu strains in swine has also been seen over the past decade, he adds. “At the end of the 1990s, there was just one subtype of swine flu. Now there are three subtypes, each with multiple strains.”
The behaviour of these new viruses is unpredictable — scientists don’t know how likely they are to jump the species barrier into humans. But with more of these viruses circulating, there is a higher chance of this happening, according to Slingenbergh. Flu viruses are getting closer to people, he says, and food and agriculture practices are to blame.
What does the future hold?
“There is no evidence to suggest this is going to end any time soon,” says Slingenbergh. “Agriculture looks set to continue growing for another two decades, and we are only at the beginning of climate change.”
David Murrell, an ecologist from University College London, also believes the emergence and re-emergence of diseases will continue into the next century at least. Habitat loss shows little signs of slowing, he adds, so we can expect to see more contact between humans and wild animals or animals kept in farms and households.
Murrell adds globalisation to the pressures behind disease emergence, and says it is here to stay. “Globalisation is a big concern regarding the emergence of novel diseases,” he explains. Before the world became so interconnected, deadly and newly emerged diseases were not capable of spreading widely. “Now it is very possible that they will spread across countries and continents within days, thereby sustaining the outbreak.”
Although globalisation can help new diseases to spread far and wide, not all regions of the world will be affected equally by this epidemiological transition, according to Murrell. Developing countries lying closest to the equator will be hardest hit, he says. By having the most biodiversity to lose, they are more likely to see increased outbreaks of zoonotic disease.
[Source: Emerging Health Threats Forum - Thursday 10 December 2009. To see the full article go to http://www.eht-forum.org/news.html?fileId=news091210085401 ]
6. Canadian Swine Health Board to launch national biosecurity benchmarking study
The Canadian Swine Health Board launched a national biosecurity benchmarking study in March 2010.
The Board was formed in early 2009 to coordinate and oversee research initiatives aimed at reducing the risk of new and emerging animal diseases as well as existing disease.
The aim, says Board chair, Florian Possberg, is to understand producers’ current biosecurity practices and identify weaknesses, enabling the Board to formulate changes that will improve biosecurity.
The opportunity is to use biosecurity as an advantage for producers by reducing introduction of new diseases or reducing or exterminating existing disease.
In order to do that it is necessary to understand what the nation‘s strengths and weakness are and where the vulnerabilities lie. The best way to achieve is to go on farm and understand what producers are using for biosecurity.
Possberg says: “Because the weakest link is our greatest susceptibility, we need to understand where this is, so we're undertaking a benchmarking study to go across Canada.
“Our proposal is to survey about 300 farms and other sources of biosecurity issues.
We will have coordinators to help make sure that these surveys are carried out at a very high level.”
Possberg says that reducing disease loads or preventing introduction of new disease will give producers a productive advantage and potentially improve market access.
NSF-CMi has provided its expertise to work with the Canadian Swine Health Board and industry experts, to develop the surveys and methodology used in the study. The data is being collected, collated and analysed using the NSF-CMi RiscoGen system, which has already been effectively deployed in a number of livestock and poultry biosecurity benchmarking projects across Canada.
[Source: NSF-CMi]/Farmscape]
7. Cargill to adopt video auditing at turkey plants
KANSAS CITY, MO. — As animal-welfare officials and plant operators with Cargill Meat Solutions work to install video cameras and software components to facilitate remote video auditing technology in their red-meat processing plants in North America, they say plans to incorporate the technology in the company’s four turkey operations later this year may pose some species-specific challenges.
In a March 26 presentation at the American Meat Institute’s Animal Care & Handling Conference Dr. Mike Siemens, Cargill’s director of animal welfare and husbandry, shared some of the lessons the company has learned since installing the hardware and software to allow for third-party, remote auditing of its animal welfare practices. Looking forward, the lessons reaped in implementing the system may not apply when the time comes to install similar systems at its poultry operations.
“We’re very fortunate on the red-meat side because we have the A.M.I. (Animal Handling) guidelines,” Mr. Siemens said. Applying the technology to its turkey slaughtering operations will be “a little more of an evolutionary process,” he said, as there are poultry-specific guidelines to follow, but the company doesn’t have as much experience in terms of camera placement and what the auditing benchmarks should be. “Our turkey division will be later in the year,” said Mr. Siemens, adding that minor hiccups in the implementation shouldn’t come as a surprise.
In March of 2009, Cargill announced plans to incorporate the R.V.A. system in the slaughtering areas of its 10 North America-based beef plants using a web-based system of software and remote auditing services from Mt. Kisco, N.Y.-based Arrowsight, Inc. The company then plans to incorporate the technology at its pork slaughtering plants, which Mr. Siemens says shouldn’t require as much installation time.
"The pork division has had cameras in their facilities for a long time so it’s more [a matter] of just connections,” he said. The installation at the turkey operations, however, may require extra time, as “we are kind of plowing newer ground on the turkey side,” said Mr. Siemens, adding the company will consult with auditing and handling experts and possibly customers to ensure the system exceeds their expectations. “That’s an evolutionary process.”
In terms of R.O.I., Mr. Siemens said remote video auditing of Cargill’s animal-welfare practices isn’t an investment that can be easily quantified, rather it is an investment in its brand protection. The technology is more like an insurance policy someone might have on their car in case of a wreck, he said. But, “We don’t want to have to cash in this insurance policy. We want to have this insurance policy to make sure we don’t have any wrecks,” he said.
[Source: http://www.worldpoultry.net/news/cargill-to-adopt-video-auditing-at-turkey-plants-7298.html ]
RISK MANAGEMENT
8. New Health and Safety Risk Assessment for Farms
NSF-CMi has launched a new Risk Assessment Service for farms which is designed to help farmers manage Health and Safety for their business and has been developed with expert input from both the Health and Safety Executive and leading Insurers.
In a world of increasing legislation and litigation there has never been more need to protect yourself and your business. This service may be of interest to you if you employ staff, family or contractors on the farm, manage their hours and provide them with the equipment and materials they use, have areas of public access over your land or have diversified into non-farming activities such as tourism, livery or light industrial units.
Ultimately, only you can be responsible for the Health and Safety of your business, but the NSF-CMi Risk Assessment Service offers you:
• Independent overview of employer and public liability exposures on farm
• Risk survey using our unique software system to identify and measure sources of risk
• Clear and succinct report highlighting identified risks and how to address them
• Optional support in setting up an effective ongoing management programme
• Procedures to facilitate your own on farm risk assessments.
To find out more about this service, how it can help your business and to obtain a no obligation quote, please contact us at NSF-CMi Risk Services 01993 885717 or riskservices@nsf-cmi.com
SUSTAINABILITY
9. What does Sustainable Agriculture mean to you?
In the UK, talk about the challenges facing the agricultural industry tends to focus on issues such as farm gate prices, the crisis in the Dairy industry and the ever increasing EU legislation. There are, however, other issues that are driving forward the standards agenda and those are the ethical, environmental and social concerns of our customers, or put another way ‘sustainable agriculture’. This is set to have the biggest influence on the shape of the global food industry over the next 20 years. The world is facing a food shortage. By the year 2050 the population will have exploded from the current 6.5 billion to over 9 billion. Global warming will impact on agriculture with changing weather patterns meaning that farmers will encounter problems they have never experienced before. Estimates predict that in some regions crop yields could drop by 30% in 20 years. This, coupled with the reduction of land available for food production (due to increasing urbanisation to cope with increasing populations and the growth of crops for bio-fuel production) is going to mean huge challenges to farmers if we are to continue to feed the population.
The response of some of the wealthier nations has been to buy or lease agricultural land from the developing world, South Korea for example has acquired 700,000ha of land in the Sudan, whilst others are sourcing food from those developing countries leading to concerns over ethical trading, sustainability and food safety. As a result of this the Food Standards Agency is proposing to implement the EU regulation introducing increased controls for “high risk imports” from 25th January 2010.
So what does all this mean for UK farmers? To stay ahead of the game in the future of food production, farmers will need to be able to demonstrate their ability to keep on top of the issues, manage their exposure to the risks and exploit opportunities to support their customers corporate responsibility requirements. Ultimately retailers will depend on partners who can support the development of innovative, convenient food products without risk to their customers or their brand. This will create opportunities for high quality producers who are able to play their part in creating customer confidence in the safety and sustainability of their food supply.
Farm assurance, as we currently know it, will need to evolve further to provide this confidence by being able to demonstrate a risk based approach to food safety and environmental management. NSF-CMi is already working hard in this area to help your business further develop to meet the requirements of the exiting but challenging times ahead, and in the near future looks forward to introducing you to Intelligent Assurance, the way forward for farm assurance.
[Source: NSF-CMi]
10. Dutch focus on carbon neutral pig farming
Research into carbon neutral pig farming using a mini-biogas plant will be carried out at Wageningen University and Research Centre's (WUR) Swine Research Farm at Sterksel, the Netherlands. The Dutch Cattle and Meat Marketing Board (PVE) will invest €170,000 in a low-cost prototype design.
'Sterksel' is opting for a simple 'mono-fermenter' which converts manure only into gas. This fermenter is linked to a gas turbine which converts the gas into electricity and heat.
"The turbine works out much cheaper in terms of upkeep," said researcher John Horrevorts. "If you opt for co-fermentation you have to build a small factory. We have chosen a simple and robust process that ferments manure only and turns it into electricity. This has resulted in lower investment costs."
Methane
Sterksel Swine Research Farm consists of a sow farm and a pork farm. It produces more than 5,000 tonnes of manure a year. To achieve good fermentation the manure has to stay in the fermenter for around 25 to 30 days, says Horrevorts.
It is his aim to shorten that time by preventing the bacteria that convert the manure into energy from being washed away. The fermenter could then be smaller in size and this would make it cost-effective. In this way he hopes to produce enough energy annually to make the research farm carbon neutral. The fact that the plant extracts methane from the manure and converts it into usable energy is an additional benefit. It thereby prevents this powerful greenhouse gas from ending up in the atmosphere.
The process involving a mini-biogas-installation has been researched in the laboratory over the past few years. Horrevorts will now launch the design in practice. If the trial succeeds, he expects that companies will go on to market the mono-fermenter.
New ideas
Horrevorts is also researching a different project, again financed by the Dutch Cattle and Meat Marketing Board (PVE), in which he looks at some out-of-the-box ideas for saving energy in pig stables. Such as recycling stable heat, and harnessing the energy from animal movements.
Horrevorts said, "It is an exploration of new ideas from within the sector, which we research to determine their viability."
Related websites:
• Dutch Cattle and Meat Marketing Board (PVE)
• Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR)
[Source: PigProgress.net 30 Mar 2010. To see the full article go to http://www.pigprogress.net/news/dutch-focus-on-carbon-neutral-pig-farming-4086.html ]
If you have any queries or would like further information about any of the topics in this bulletin please call Karen Collins on 01993 885610 or email karen.collins@nsf-cmicertification.com
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