Workshop on “Food Security: Infectious Diseases in Farm Animals”- Invited Lectures, Day 2
St. Catherine’s College, Manor Road, Oxford, UK, 4-7th April 2016 Attended by M Djuric, CAB International, Wallingford, UK, on 5th April 2016 (Day 2) This workshop meeting was jointly organised by the Pirbright Institute, Woking, UK and Cairo University, Egypt and was sponsored by the British Council Research Links Programme. The aims of the workshop…
Workshop on “Food Security: Infectious Diseases in Farm Animals” brings together animal and veterinary scientists from Egypt and the UK
St. Catherine’s College, Manor Road, Oxford, UK, 4-7th April 2016 Attended by M Djuric, CAB International, Wallingford, UK, on 5th April 2016 (Day 2) This workshop meeting was jointly organised by the Pirbright Institute, Woking, UK and Cairo University, Egypt and was sponsored by the British Council Research Links Programme. There were 50-60 delegates in attendance…
EU dairy industry outlook following the abolition of milk quotas
By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK. Milk is the EU's number one agricultural product in terms of value, accounting for approximately 15% of agricultural output with approximately 148 million tonnes of cow milk produced in 2014. The dairy sector is also of significant economic and social importance in the EU, with over 650,000…
Animal Genetic Research Increasingly Focuses on Medical and Pharmaceutical Markets rather than on Food Production
According to a recent report by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), patenting activity in the field of animal genetics is focusing on medical and pharmaceutical markets, rather than animal products for human nutrition. A vast amount of scientific literature on animal genetic resources, transgenic animals and patents in this field is available in the CAB Direct database. The literature, which originates from more than 150 countries and is published in over 50 languages, is translated and indexed by CABI’s specialists for easy searching. The CAB Direct database currently contains more than 23,000 references with abstracts on animal genetic resources.
Global Meat Production Continues to Rise – Pork and Poultry Meat Are the Most Popular
Pork is still the most popular meat globally, followed closely by poultry meat. Global production of pork in 2011 was 109 million tons, accounting for 37% of the total meat, while poultry meat production reached 101 million tons, according to a recent report from the Worldwatch Institute These data represent a 0.8% annual decrease in pork…
Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) Targeted for Eradication
The FAO and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) have developed a detailed strategy for Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) control under the umbrella of their Global Framework for the Progressive Control of Transboundary Animal Diseases (GF-TADs). However, it is clear that only a massive commitment of national and international resources would make FMD eradication possible as surveillance and monitoring over a long period is required. FMD is a highly infectious disease caused by a picornavirus, which affects cloven-hoofed animals, in particular cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and deer. Other animals including camelids and elephants can also be affected. The disease is notifiable, which means that the local veterinary services must be notified immediately if FMD is suspected.Although FMD does not pose a direct threat to human health, and is rarely fatal in animals, it can cause reduced milk yield, weight loss and lower fertility. The global annual cost of FMD in…
Where’s my ball? How practical is it to give farm animals a better environment?
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that giving animals a better environment makes them less stressed, less likely to behave abnormally, and sometimes more productive. However, most of that evidence comes from small-scale trials, and scaling improvements up to the practicalities of large farms could prove costly and burdensome. Is it environmental enrichment…
BSE: Twenty years old
Twenty years ago, a paper appeared in the Veterinary Record recording a new disease in dairy cattle. The syndrome had been seen in cattle in England for a couple of years but with the publication of the paper by Wells and others, the disease was described and named, and the new term bovine spongiform encephalopathy…
Foot and mouth: back again?
As soon as I heard the news on Saturday (4 August) that foot and mouth disease had returned to the UK, being found in a herd of cattle near to Guilford, I thought “That’s suspiciously close to the Pirbright Laboratory.” The Institute of Animal Health (IAH) has for a long time been a world centre…