Don’t Go in Unprepared: Packing Industry Responds to ASF Tabletop Exercise
Preparing for a foreign animal disease outbreak is like running a race, said Barb Masters, vice president of regulatory policy, food and agriculture at Tyson Foods. You just can’t go into a foreign animal disease outbreak and expect to be ready without preparation.
“A plan is important, but planning is the priceless piece. We can’t predict everything that will happen in a foreign animal disease (FAD) outbreak, but the more we can work ahead to lay some of those foundation blocks is critical,” said Jeff Kaisand, DVM, Iowa state veterinarian, during a media briefing on Oct. 15 about the recent African swine fever (ASF) tabletop exercise held by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
The tabletop exercise took place on Sept. 29 with representatives from the meat processing industry to help familiarize them with state and federal animal health agencies’ response plans.
“One of the highlights of the exercise was the ability to get such a broad spectrum of stakeholders in one room and walk through some realistic challenges that will be faced in an outbreak. This collaboration provides the opportunity to effectively test state, federal and harvest facility ASF response plans,” said Mike Stepien, APHIS communications specialist.
If ASF is Discovered at a Packing Plant
There’s no question that producers are on the frontlines when it comes to the discovery of a FAD outbreak such as ASF. But the packing industry plays a valuable role, too.
“All roads, in large part, lead to the packing house. So, we have a tremendous role to play,” said KatieRose McCullough, director of scientific and regulatory affairs at the North American Meat Institute (Meat Institute). “When it comes to biosecurity and biocontainment, there's potential spread that can come out of the packing plant with as many loads of hogs that come in and out.”
That’s why enhanced biosecurity measures are critical across meat processing facilities. McCullough said from a packing perspective, that includes measures such as separating employees that work in lairage, as well as those that may be working in the further processing part of the plant so there's no potential cross contamination. It’s cleaning and disinfection of the lairage and unloading dock areas and paying closer attention to encouraging truck washes as soon as trucks they leave the plant.
McCullough noted that it’s possible that a potential outbreak could happen at a packing plant first. Plants serve as another set of eyes to monitor signs for FADs.
“Hogs might not be identified as ASF-positive until they get to a processing facility’s doors,” McCullough said. “Being able to know how to effectively clean the plant and do it as fast as possible so we can maintain operations without spreading it is going to be important.”
Although ASF is a disease of hogs and poses no food safety issues, Masters said the meat processing industry needs to partner with producers and the government to ensure biocontainment and biosecurity measures are in place to help minimize spread of disease and disruption to the supply chain.
“We want to be a part of the solution,” McCullough said. “We know how high throughput plants are. We need to make sure that we're not contributing to any potential spread of ASF throughout the country.”
Uncover Potential Gaps
The exercise helped highlight gaps the pork industry may have in some of its planning, as well as recognize where the plan is working well.
“We found there's some places where we need to add some more clarity into what we're talking about or what we're doing in planning, especially for packers and foreign animal disease preparedness,” Kaisand said.
Participants took the exercise very seriously, said Rosemary Sifford, deputy administrator of APHIS and chief veterinary officer of the U.S. Not only did they ask hard questions, but they also helped the group dive into topics that they would need to be as prepared as possible for in a real event. She said the exercise opened their eyes to new ways to continue to build and improve plans and share information.
“When it comes to a FAD outbreak, the amount of information and data that a state animal health official needs to really get a good idea of what's going on and get that good situational awareness is absolutely critical,” said Patrick Webb, acting chief veterinarian at the National Pork Board. “This exercise demonstrated the number of movements that can occur to a harvest facility or out of a harvest facility that need to be accounted for so state animal health officials have the best amount of information to be able to manage an outbreak.”
He added that it was beneficial to be able to use Ag View, the National Pork Board’s database and dashboard technology, along with Tyson Foods on the packer side, to actually visualize that type of information and how this information can be moved over to the state animal health official in order for them to have the best information for decision-making related to the packing plant and to shipments in and out.
“Today, if Dr. Kaisand were to ask for that [animal movement] information, we would be able to provide it – but it would be in the form of paper records,” Masters said. “In the future, we would use AgView to provide electronic records rather than paper records so that he could have one electronic source of truth of records of movement of animals into our facility, as well as trying to look at product movement out of our facility.”
The amount of data meat processing facilities capture for business purposes, and also for legal purposes, is quite extensive, Webb added.
“If we can get that information into a usable form and visualized in a way that it makes for more rapid risk-based decision-making for state animal health officials, then we've gained some ground,” Webb said. “What we're trying to do is shorten that response time.”
What’s Next?
Tabletop exercises like this one will continue. Masters said it’s an important part of Tyson’s preparedness plan. She encourages other meat processing facilities to learn from their experience and take advantage of the materials on USDA’s website where the exercise material will be made available as well as take-home lessons learned.
“I think that's a really important outcome of this exercise is that the materials will be made available for everyone to use,” Masters said.
Information will also be shared in an “after action report” that will allow people to see what actions have been taken as a result of previous exercises to continue to improve emergency response planning, Sifford said.
“We are in a global animal health situation and with all the interactions that happen every day around the world with the U.S., we encourage producers to make sure they have a strong biosecurity plan on their farm,” Kaisand said. “Because the last line of defense we have is making sure it doesn't get into an animal in the U.S.”
ASF is not a threat to human health or food safety, but it is almost always fatal to pigs. Learn more about ASF here.
Read More from Farm Journal's PORK:
Fight Against African Swine Fever Top of Mind for House Ag Committee
Develop and Refine ASF Surveillance Protocols
How a Grocery Store and a Packing Plant Opened Two Pig Farmers’ Perspectives
