ERS and Collaborators Model Foot-and-Mouth Disease Outbreaks

Maintaining the competitiveness of US, livestock and poultry in domestic and international markets requires addressing the challenges and anticipating the disruptions of disease threats. A new modeling tool integrates epidemiological simulations from a North American Animal Disease-Spread Model developed by USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service with an economic model developed at Purdue with ERS collaboration. A purely hypothetical outbreak of FMD in small Midwest hog operations was simulated to assess the effect of mitigation strategies and impacts of export embargoes for beef, beef cattle, hogs, and pork. The framework is flexible and can be applied to many livestock diseases.