Protecting Ohio’s valuable poultry industry from deadly avian flu

Ohio State veterinary students visit a turkey farm to learn about avian flu biosecurity. Outreach and education are key to protecting the poultry industry from infectious diseases.

Ohio State veterinary students visit a turkey farm to learn about avian flu biosecurity. Outreach and education are key to protecting the poultry industry from infectious diseases.

Since November 2014, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5 spread by wild waterfowl has gripped the U.S. poultry industry, killing close to 50 million birds in at least 19 states.

While the virus has not yet reached Ohio, Ohio State University Extension experts have been helping poultry producers learn about the disease, boost biosecurity measures on the farm and prepare to minimize the flu’s impact if it were to reach the state.

“Our industry needs to adopt tighter biosecurity, as this virus can spread wide and fast, and outbreaks could reoccur in spring and fall,” said Mohamed El-Gazzar, OSU Extension poultry veterinarian. “We are also helping with logistical challenges such as identifying the best way to dispose of infected birds in case of an outbreak.”

To address this challenge, biosystems engineer Fred Michel developed a plan for Ohio egg farms to compost up to hundreds of thousands of dead chickens on-site, reducing the risk of contamination to other layer houses or nearby farms.


ESSENTIALS

• The current avian flu outbreak is a serious threat to Ohio’s $2.3 billion poultry industry, which directly supports more than 14,600 jobs. Nationally, Ohio ranks second in egg production and ninth in turkey production.
• If Ohio were to experience a poultry production loss of 50 percent, OSU Extension estimates the ripple effect would reach $1 billion in overall economic losses, including $815,000 in annual wages.
• Heavy losses to Iowa’s egg farms from this virus have sent egg prices soaring across the United States. If the virus reaches Ohio, prices will increase even more dramatically, affecting both consumers and food manufacturers.

More: go.osu.edu/birdflu

Future of farming includes precision tech, smart use of ‘big data’

Modern farm machinery and unmanned aerial vehicles are opening new doors for the collection of valuable data to help growers improve production and the environment.

Modern farm machinery and unmanned aerial vehicles are opening new doors for the collection of valuable data to help growers improve production and the environment.

In the world of agriculture, having access to rich data sources about field conditions, weather patterns, pests and more can make a huge difference in the profitability and sustainability of Ohio farms.

The Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center is working with farmers, industry groups and state agencies to boost access to and analysis of field data gathered from new-generation farm machinery, satellite data and remote-sensing imagery captured by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

“Data can support farmers’ management decisions, for example how much nitrogen should be applied to corn and whether or when a fungicide needs to be used,” OARDC and Ohio State University Extension precision agriculture specialist John Fulton said. “But all this enormous amount of data needs to be gathered and provided quickly for farmers to make the best use of it.”

A key goal of Fulton’s work is to create a repository that will then be made available to growers in a user-friendly manner to help them make data-driven decisions.

ESSENTIALS

The enhanced use of precision farming technology and “big data” analysis can benefit the agricultural industry and society in three key areas.

  • Economy: Providing remote-sensing imagery and other types of data to growers and their crop consultants can help growers make more efficient use of fertilizers and other expensive inputs, thus lowering costs.
  • Environment: Reducing fertilizer and agrochemical applications benefits the environment, protecting water, pollinators and other valuable natural resources.
  • Research: Developing an extensive data repository can help university scientists save time in their research projects and develop innovative recommendations to assist both farmers and the environment.

Tackling avian flu and other dangerous poultry diseases

Lee bird flu

Virologist Chang-Won Lee conducts research — including the development of new vaccines and diagnostic tests — to combat avian flu and other respiratory diseases of poultry.

Since November 2014, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5 spread by wild waterfowl has gripped the U.S. poultry industry, killing close to 50 million birds in at least 19 states.

While the virus has not yet reached Ohio, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center experts are conducting innovative research to improve detection, prevention and management of avian flu and other respiratory diseases that threaten the state’s valuable poultry industry.

For instance, virologist Chang-Won Lee leads a U.S. Department of Agriculture $7.2 million grant that partners scientists and colleagues at The Ohio State University with other universities.

The project’s goal is threefold: to better understand the ecology of poultry diseases in order to develop more effective prevention strategies; to validate diagnostic methods currently employed and create better ones as needed; and to gain a better understanding of the relationship between disease, host and environment in order to aid in the development of new control methods.

ESSENTIALS

• The current avian flu outbreak is a serious threat to Ohio’s $2.3 billion poultry industry, which directly supports more than 14,600 jobs. Nationally, Ohio ranks second in egg production and ninth in turkey production.

• If Ohio were to experience just a 50 percent poultry production loss, Ohio State University Extension estimates the effect would reach $1 billion in overall economic losses, including $815,000 in annual wages.

• Heavy losses to Iowa’s egg farms from this virus have sent egg prices soaring across the United States. If the virus reaches Ohio, prices would increase even more dramatically, affecting both consumers and food manufacturers.

More: go.osu.edu/birdflu

High cost of foodborne illnesses: OARDC researcher provides state-by-state breakdown

Public health policymakers view the work of Robert Scharff, right, as invaluable when determining how to direct tight resources to fight foodborne illnesses.

Public health policymakers view the work of Robert Scharff, right, as invaluable when determining how to direct tight resources to fight foodborne illnesses.

Foodborne illnesses cost Ohio up to $2.9 billion every year. In other states, such costs range from just $181 million all the way to $12 billion, according to a 2015 study by Robert Scharff, economist with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.

Costs fluctuate between states for a variety of reasons, including population, cost of medical care, climate and other factors, Scharff said. Those variations can have a significant impact on local decision making.

Scharff’s Journal of Food Protection study is a first-of-its-kind economic analysis designed to offer public health authorities detailed information to help evaluate the cost-effectiveness of food-safety education efforts and how best to prioritize resources.

“Take an illness from a pathogen like Vibrio,” Scharff said. “It’s associated with seafood, particularly raw seafood in summer. States with higher shellfish consumption — those in coastal areas — have a higher incidence, and so it makes sense for them to devote more resources to battling it.”

Scharff’s analyses have gotten the attention of public health authorities nationwide.

“Scharff’s work has been indispensable to our efforts,” said Sandra B. Eskin, director of food safety with The Pew Charitable Trusts. “His estimates of the economic impact of these illnesses — considered both on a nationwide and state-by-state basis — help make the case that the benefits from policies aimed at preventing food safety problems clearly outweigh costs.”

ESSENTIALS
Robert Scharff’s study, “State Estimates for the Annual Cost of Foodborne Illness,” provides both conservative cost estimates — following the model typically used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture — as well as higher estimates that include loss of quality of life, which is the model used by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Using those models, the costs related to foodborne illnesses in Ohio are estimated to be:
  • $1,039 to $1,666 per case
  • $156 to $250 per resident, annually
  • $1.8 billion to $2.9 billion in total annual costs

More: go.osu.edu/fdillcost

OARDC scientists nab national honors; have ‘positive impact on society’

Ken Lee (photo: Ken Chamberlain, CFAES)

Ken Lee (photo: Ken Chamberlain, CFAES)

Prominent professional groups recently honored two Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center scientists, one of whom works on food and health, one on alternative rubber production.

In December, Ken Lee, professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology, was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He joined four other Ohio State faculty members who were elected to the association last year.

Ohio State President Michael V. Drake said Ohio State’s new AAAS Fellows “demonstrate the wide reach of Ohio State research. They exemplify the university’s mission of creating the knowledge and discoveries that make a difference in people’s lives.”

Also in December, Katrina Cornish, professor in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science and Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, was named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Cornish was one of two inductees — along with Vice President for Research Caroline Whitacre — from Ohio State in 2015.

Katrina Cornish (photo: Ken Chamberlain, CFAES)

Bruce McPheron, the university’s interim executive vice president and provost, said, “We at Ohio State are extremely proud of the accomplishments of Drs. Whitacre and Cornish. Their contributions to innovation are superb examples of the positive impact that the university has on society.”

Impact: Good food and health, sustainable rubber

  • Lee, who specializes in innovative ways to improve the human condition through food, is the director and lead investigator of Ohio State’s Food Innovation Center.
  • Cornish, who’s developing new, more sustainable sources of natural rubber, holds the Endowed Chair in Bio-based Emergent Materials and is an Ohio Research Scholar.

Read more here and here.

A simple, low-cost way to grow more food

Urban Farms of Central Ohio, part of the Mid-Ohio Foodbank, uses high-tunnel technology developed by OARDC scientists to train new farmers and help feed the hungry. (Photo: Ken Chamberlain, CFAES.)

Urban Farms of Central Ohio uses high-tunnel technology developed by OARDC scientists to train new farmers and help feed the hungry. (Photo: Ken Chamberlain, CFAES.)

High tunnels help farmers grow more food of higher quality, and Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center scientists are working to widen their use.

Especially suited to small and urban farms, the simple, low-cost structures make the growing season longer.

Inside, fruits and vegetables ripen earlier in spring and yield later in fall, with no need for fossil-fuel heat.

“High tunnels translate into greater food production, greater food security and greater potential farm income,” said OARDC scientist Matt Kleinhenz.

At OARDC facilities in Piketon and Wooster and on cooperating farms, Kleinhenz and OARDC colleague Brad Bergefurd are studying high tunnels, documenting their benefits and refining the best ways to use them. Then, they’re sharing their findings with farmers.

“We’ve used OARDC’s high tunnel research to increase our impact by providing high-quality produce for more months of the year,” said Dana Hilfinger, farm manager for Urban Farms of Central Ohio (pictured above, right).

“We’re a nonprofit commercial farming organization providing fresh produce access to food-insecure individuals,” she said. “We’ve been able to market our produce earlier in the season, generating more revenue to support our mission and generally supporting central Ohio’s local food economy,”

Essentials

  • In Ohio, high tunnels can extend the marketing season of a farm from six months to year-round.
  • High tunnels increase a farm’s annual food production. Warm- and cool-season crops are grown and sold in succession. Hundreds to thousands of pounds of more and different kinds of produce are taken from tunnels when outside fields are dormant. That means more revenue to growers and greater choice and health benefits to consumers.
  • Weather extremes disrupt normal farming practices outside, but not so much inside high tunnels. High tunnels protect crops from rain, snow, wind, cold and other stresses, including some pests and disease-causing pathogens. Tunnel production can use less fertilizer, irrigation, pesticides and labor.

Get further details on this research here.

Kale! Kale! The gang’s all here … in an Ohio State greenhouse growing veggies for students

Lesa Holford, right, corporate executive chef with Ohio State University's Student Life Dining Services department, and Courtney George, a sophomore food science major, tend plants they’ve helped grow in a university greenhouse. (Photo: K.D. Chamberlain, CFAES  Communications.)

Lesa Holford, right, corporate executive chef with Ohio State University’s Student Life Dining Services department, and Courtney George, a sophomore food science major, tend kale and basil plants in a university greenhouse. (Photo: K.D. Chamberlain, CFAES Communications.)

There’s a new spin to eating on campus.

Ohio State’s Student Life Dining Services department and the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences have teamed to grow some of the produce served in the university’s dining halls.

In a greenhouse run by the college’s Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, plant experts from the department, food experts with Dining Services and student volunteers oversee hundreds of robust kale, basil and romaine lettuce plants.

After harvest, the crops go into such dishes as Caesar salads, caprese sandwiches, and kale and bacon tarts (recipe here), all served in campus eateries.

Systems like this one are part of the growing “farm-to-table” movement. Farm-to-table systems aim to shorten the distance as much as possible between where a food is produced and where it’s consumed.

Fresh from the Buckeyes’ backyard

  • Horticulture and Crop Science staff “have taught us so much,” said Lesa Holford, corporate executive chef with Student Life Dining Services. She said she’s more than pleased with the project’s first fruits: more than 230 pounds of greens and herbs in the first three months.
  • Zia Ahmed, senior director of Student Life Dining Services, said, “One day (the project) may lead to a significant amount of production coming out of our own backyard to feed our students. … It’s a great privilege to have the opportunity to grow our own food.”
  • To contact the sources: Lesa Holford at holford.8@osu.edu; Zia Ahmed at ahmed.290@osu.edu.

Read more.

New hypoallergenic latex creates business opportunity

Graduate student Cindy Barrera Martínez (left) and researcher Katrina Cornish make latex gloves for testing at OARDC’s alternative rubber pilot plant in Wooster.

Graduate student Cindy Barrera Martínez (left) and researcher Katrina Cornish make latex gloves for testing
at OARDC’s alternative rubber pilot plant in Wooster.

Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center researchers have developed new materials that will allow medical professionals to have the natural latex gloves they prefer, while avoiding the risk of allergic reactions.

The patent-pending materials include a latex film made from guayule that is safe for both Type I and Type IV latex allergy sufferers, and a traditional Hevea rubber tree latex film that is Type IV-hypoallergenic.

“Guayule is a U.S. desert shrub that produces a high-quality latex which is very strong, tear-resistant, soft, comfortable and less irritating than synthetic materials from which many gloves are now made,” said Katrina Cornish, The Ohio State University’s Ohio Research Scholar and endowed chair in bioemergent materials. “And guayule latex is naturally Type I-hypoallergenic.”

To make the guayule and Hevea gloves Type IV-hypoallergenic, Cornish and her graduate students used new “accelerators” — chemicals added to speed up the curing reactions and production of latex products — that don’t leave residues associated with this type of allergy in the finished product.

Essentials

  • Medical professionals prefer natural rubber latex gloves over synthetic ones because they are stronger, have more tactile sensitivity, provide superior protection to blood-borne pathogens and cause less hand fatigue.
  • Latex is also the preferred material for many healthcare and consumer products such as catheters, masks, dental dams, orthodontic rubber bands and condoms.
  • The Ohio State University is conducting guayule trials in southern Ohio with the aim of developing a new domestic rubber-and-latex-producing crop as well as economic opportunities in the region.
  • Cornish is also working with partners in South Africa to grow guayule there and to produce allergy-free condoms, empowering poor women to start their own enterprises while helping to combat the AIDS epidemic.
  • A startup company — EnergyEne Inc., headquartered in Wooster — has been established to lead the development and commercialization of products made from these new latex materials.

“Having a steady supply of domestically produced natural latex would open the door for major dipped-goods manufacturers and medical glove producers to re-establish facilities in the U.S.,” said Tom Marsh, president of Centrotrade Minerals & Metals, Chesapeake, Virginia. “As a raw material supplier, we applaud the work championed by Dr. Cornish and supported by OARDC.”

More: go.osu.edu/nk3

New swine disease shows up, outreach is key to minimize impact

Pat Hord, owner of Hord Livestock in Bucyrus, Ohio. He credits Ohio State with helping him control a PEDv outbreak at his swine operation.

Pat Hord, owner
of Hord Livestock in Bucyrus, Ohio. He credits Ohio State with helping him control a PEDv outbreak at his swine operation.

In 2013, a new swine disease was discovered in the U.S. Very quickly, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) spread across the country, killing pigs at hundreds of farms in at least 30 states, including Ohio.

As PEDv has continued to impact the swine industry, Ohio State University Extension has worked with hog producers across the state to keep them updated about biosecurity measures they must follow to minimize the spread of the disease, and about technologies that can help them make better decisions.

“Working with Ohio State in concert with our local veterinarian has helped us use technology,such as new methods of testing for the disease, more effectively,” said Pat Hord, owner of Hord Livestock in Bucyrus, Ohio. His swine operation was affected by the virus, but has been successful at controlling it.

OSU Extension swine specialist Steve Moeller said continued research and educational efforts are needed to help the industry fend off PEDv and secure an adequate supply of pork products to
consumers.

Essentials

  • PEDv has killed more than 7 million piglets in the U.S., reducing pork production and industry profits, and threatening to impact the availability of pork products as well as prices.
  • Unlike other viruses, PEDv does not pose any risk to food safety or human health.
  • The disease causes 50 to 100 percent mortality among piglets. Adult pigs show only mild illness, but they can carry the virus — which is transmitted via contaminated feces — and spread
    it to other pigs.
  • The virus has proven to be very persistent and difficult to contain. Hot summers and cold winters are having little effect on PEDv, so new herds are being infected on a continuous basis throughout the country.
  • PEDv might also impact swine exhibits at agricultural fairs, as the conglomeration of animals from many different farms could spread the disease even further.

“Ohio State was extremely pivotal in helping answer questions about the potential spread of PEDv in the feed for Ohio pork producers,” said Dr. Todd Price, D.V.M., of North Central Veterinary Services in Sycamore, Ohio. “The university’s experts should be commended for their timely and valuable research put forth to help producers learn more about this devastating disease.”

More: go.osu.edu/nkx

Simulator helps prevent grain-handling injuries, increases grain bin safety, trains first responders

larry flowers state fire marshall 2014_OSUE_GC0140_flowers

Larry Flowers, Ohio State Fire Marshall

Ohio’s first grain rescue simulator trailer — designed by faculty and students from The Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences — is now used to educate first responders, grain industry employees and farm families about the hazards of flowing grain. This simulator maximizes the public-private partnerships between the university, the Ohio Fire Academy and the Ohio agribusinesses that contributed resources toward the project.

The Grain C.A.R.T. (Comprehensive Agricultural Rescue Trailer) is a dynamic teaching aid, said Dee Jepsen, state safety leader for Ohio State University Extension. It enhances safety

education in farm communities and trains first responders who are called to an agricultural scene where grain is stored. It’s used with the Ohio Fire Academy’s agricultural rescue direct-delivery training modules and with OSU Extension’s grain bin rescue outreach education program.

Rescue personnel requested training in these unconventional rescue situations, where they have limited experience and knowledge of the agricultural conditions that exist.

Essentials

  • The need for grain-handling safety programs is significant, considering that every year approximately 26 Ohio farm workers lose their lives to production agriculture. Flowing grain and grain storage is one of the contributing factors. In the past 10 years, 14 Ohio farmers have died due to engulfments in grain bins, entanglements in augers, falls from grain bin-related structures and electrocution.
  • Mounted on a 40-foot flatbed trailer, the Grain C.A.R.T. includes a grain bin, a gravity wagon, a grain leg system with augers and other training essentials.
  • The Grain C.A.R.T. was used for training in 26 counties on 54 days in fiscal year 2014, according to the Ohio Fire Academy.
  • This OSU Extension outreach program presented live demonstrations of grain engulfment and equipment entanglements to the farming community, to grain co-op employees and to first responders — reaching approximately 12,000 participants.

“The value of this partnership is, not only are we providing information to the agricultural community, but also to first responders in those communities. Seventy percent of Ohio is protected by volunteer fire departments, so being able to take this hands-on training to them is valuable,” said Larry Flowers, Ohio state fire marshal.

For more information: agsafety.osu.edu.