Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410030082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The U.S. Department of Agriculture told Virginia agriculture officials last week that cattle from a second Floyd County herd have tested positive for bovine tuberculosis, resulting in the loss of Virginia's TB-free status for cattle trade for a minimum of two years, according to a Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services news release.
Unless states continue to take the Virginia-grown cattle without testing them, farmers will have to pay $1 or $2 per head to have them tested. There also will be labor costs associated with rounding up the herds for testing. Virginia shipped about 600,000 head of cattle out of state last year.
Those costs and the likelihood that many buyers in other states may shop elsewhere to avoid all the red tape could put a major dent in cattle sales and the profit farmers make on what they do sell.
"It's just one more aggravation at a time when we don't need it," said Phillip Morris, manager of the Narrows Livestock Auction Market.
Morris said 75 percent of the cattle sold in Virginia are sold from September through November. With recent low prices, he said, many farmers have not yet brought their herds to market. Saturday's announcement may leave them holding the feed bag longer than they had planned.
Last year, Virginia cattle sales totaled $334 million, making cattle the state's second-largest cash crop. Virginia is a major producer of feeder cattle, or cattle raised to 800 pounds and sold to farmers in the Midwest who raise them to their full weight of 1,200 to 1,400 pounds.
It's those Midwestern markets and others like them that Virginia farmers are concerned about. In early August, Indiana, Michigan, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, South Carolina, Wisconsin and Kentucky - states that buy 90 percent of Virginia's cattle - agreed not to require testing for feeder cattle.
Morris said the extent to which Virginia farmers will be hurt depends on whether those eight states will continue to accept the cattle without testing.
David Gardner, Floyd County's extension agent, said he doesn't think the loss of the status will lead those states to demand testing.
"Basically, things won't change from what they are right now. ... It's just one animal [that tested positive], and the rest of the producer's herd tested clean," he said.
The effect will become clear after the test results are published in the Federal Register in the next few weeks, making Virginia officially a "modified accredited state."
Meanwhile, Gardner said, more herds in the area where the infected cattle were found likely will be tested.
Worries about the loss of the state's TB-free status began in early May, when TB was detected in carcasses in Pennsylvania that were traced to a Floyd County herd owned by Allen Harman. That herd was destroyed, and the TB-free status was suspended in July. If the infection had been limited to Harman's herd, the suspension could have been lifted this fall.
But other herds in the area of Harman's farm also were tested. In August, three more suspicious cattle were found. This week, tests came back positive for one of them. That was all the prompting the USDA needed to withdraw the status Virginia has had since 1988.
In May, state Agriculture Commissioner Carlton Courter estimated that the loss of TB-free status would cost cattle producers millions of dollars.
But in Saturday's news release, he tried to be optimistic.
"In spite of this [setback], the Virginia cattle industry has been very successful in the past," he said, "and we will overcome this obstacle as well."
by CNB