In today’s Beef Buzz, senior farm and ranch broadcaster Ron Hays speaks with Joe Barbour of the Livestock Marketing Association, who says Oklahoma has been working behind the scenes for more than a year to prepare for the possibility of New World screwworm reaching the state while also protecting the ability of cattle producers to continue marketing livestock.
Oklahoma Has Been Preparing for More Than a Year
With two confirmed cases of New World screwworm now reported in South Texas, concern continues to grow across the cattle industry. While the outbreak remains hundreds of miles from the Oklahoma border, Barbour said extensive planning efforts are already underway. “It’s been a huge topic, and you’d have to be living under a rock to not heard of the New World screwworm in our industry by now,” Barbour said.
Barbour praised the work of Oklahoma’s Animal Health Division and said the state has taken a leadership role in preparing for a potential outbreak. “We’re blessed here in Oklahoma to have a fantastic staff within our Animal Health Division of the Oklahoma Department of Ag, and they’ve been leading the charge as one of the states at the forefront of staying ahead of if the New World screwworm were to come into Oklahoma,” he said.
Barbour said discussions involving state animal health officials, industry leaders and livestock market representatives began more than a year ago. “Dr. Hall and Dr. Gorczyca and I, along with Michael Kelsey, sat down here sometime back over a year ago and took the first look at what that plan would look like,” Barbour said. “We discussed and went through positives and negatives and ran through scenarios.”
Tabletop Exercises Test Possible Outbreak Scenarios
More recently, Oklahoma stakeholders participated in a tabletop exercise designed to test how the state would respond if New World screwworm were detected within its borders. The industry “sat down with a larger group out of Oklahoma and kind of did a tabletop exercise and gave some scenarios on if the New World screwworm were to show up down in southeast Oklahoma, how would Oklahoma react to that situation,” Barbour explained.
The discussions also focused on how neighboring states would respond to cattle movements originating from Oklahoma. “How would other states react to Oklahoma cattle moving out of Oklahoma and other states?” he said.
According to Barbour, Oklahoma has worked closely with surrounding states to develop a practical response plan. “Oklahoma has really been at the forefront of that conversation and has worked seamlessly with Texas, New Mexico, Kansas and some of these other states that border us in different ways to try to develop a plan that not only shuts down the New World screwworm but allows business to maintain continuity.”
Keeping Cattle Markets Functioning
Barbour said maintaining normal cattle marketing channels remains a top priority for the Livestock Marketing Association. “Of course, we don’t want the New World screwworm, but we do want to be able to continue to conduct business, sell cattle at auction, allow producers to move cattle easily if that thing were to come to this state,” he said.
He added that Oklahoma’s preparation efforts should ultimately benefit cattle producers if a detection ever occurs. “I’m confident that we’ve come up with a plan in Oklahoma that can live with if the New World screwworm were to come here, show up here,” Barbour said. “I don’t think all the states have been near as involved as Oklahoma has in that planning process, and that’ll be to the benefit of our producers down the road.”
Minimizing Disruptions for Producers
Barbour emphasized that livestock markets play a critical role in helping producers market cattle when animals reach the point where they need to move. “Cattle are something that they get to a certain timeline within their life cycle that they have to move and they have to be sold,” Barbour said.
He noted that Oklahoma producers have access to livestock auctions throughout the state nearly every day of the week. “At any given time, six days a week, you can find a livestock auction in Oklahoma that you can turn that animal into a good check for you as a producer,” he said.
Looking ahead, Barbour said the goal is to ensure cattle can continue moving through the marketplace with as little disruption as possible should New World screwworm ever reach Oklahoma. “We’ve got to be able to continue that continuity of being able to sell those cattle when they’re ready to go with the least amount of regulation as possible in the New World screwworm situation,” Barbour said.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR above for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
