Livestock Disease/Agriculture & Food Safety Biosecurity (Quay County)

Programming efforts for this plan include a series of events in Tucumcari and surrounding areas in an effort to better inform consumers as well as producers about the many food recalls and safety alerts in the national media. Similarly, this plan provides educational programming to small acreage owners and home horticulturists on the best and safest methods of producing and handling food items for home consumption. The agriculture industry will also have a better understanding of the importance of having an Emergency Management Plan for their respective farms and ranches as well as method and means to handle bio-security issues and prevention on livestock disease outbreaks.
January 2011 began with our Annual Agriculture & Home Economics Seminar’s main theme focusing on Food Safety and Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs). The days topics included food safety and security, processing of food at home in a safe and clean manner.
Other topics of interest for the seminar included “The New Food Safety Bill and You”, Good Agricultural Practices for Small Farm operators”, and “How to Stay informed about Food Recalls and Pandemics.” Speakers covered other health concerns, alerts, from the Center for Disease and Control. The seminars participants numbered 73 total. Ninety seven percent of evaluations returned stated having an increase awareness of the topics discussed as a result of the program. Additionally, 87% of evaluations stated they would implement a GAPs practice taught at the seminar on their respective operations/homes.
Other programming with lead sponsorship by Quay Extension office includes the Quay County Drought management Workshop with over 40 participants attending. The workshop topics covered federal and state assistance programs, cash flow strategies during drought and range management practices for dry and arid regions. Additionally, National Weather Service representative was on hand to give an overview and in depth analysis on El Nino/ La Nina systems and their relation to weather in the southwest. This workshop provided specific information to local producers on how to deal with the natural disaster of drought in both crops and beef cattle operations.
Participants attending the workshop with 90% completed the retrospective post evaluation. Ninety seven percent rated themselves as very little to average knowledge on all topics covered at the workshop and a 98% increase in knowledge on all topics discussed. Eighty three percent of participants stated that the weather overview and in depth discussion was their favorite topic discussed. All evaluations stated coming away with some new knowledge and would put it into practice along with other management decisions.
Other activities and professional improvement include New Mexico Ag. Expo – Portales, NM Cattle Growers Association Northeast Region Emergency Preparedness Training – Tucucmari, NM Dept. of Homeland Security and Emergency management Conference, the Southwest Border Food Safety and Defense Center’s – Preparing Communities for Animal, Plant, and Food Incidents Training.
Feral Hog Workshop
A new and ever increasing problem in Quay County and other areas of New Mexico are feral hog infestation into range and cropland. Feral hogs have caused tremendous amounts of damage to agricultural producers in both destroyed crops and depredation of livestock. As a result NMDA, NM Cattle Growers, and various state and federal agencies have concentrated efforts to control this unyielding pest.
Additionally, feral swine are carriers of a variety of diseases, they also play host to insects that carry and transmit a list of common and infectious bacteria. As a result, Quay County Extension held the first ever Feral Hog Symposium in Tucumcari. The day’s events covered an assortment of topics such as History, Diseases and Dangers, Regulations and Management/Control. Most popular of the topics pertained to wildlife and domestic livestock interactions and the future of feral hog infestations in New Mexico.
The educational symposium consisted of 56 participants, representation of 5 federal and state agencies and various landowners from across the state. Additionally, the day’s presenters were broadcast over Centra to include 12 counties and 3 individuals reviewing the archived sessions. Since this event feral hog programs have been held throughout New Mexico with strong attendance and interest in the topic. All participants rated their knowledge on feral hogs at a very low to no previous knowledge before the program. The post test evaluation rated participants as knowledgeable to very knowledgeable. “This was a very educational program and will certainly be a useful tool in my management of prevention of feral hog infestations.” ,says Phil Bidegain of the historic T4 Cattle Company. The event was coordinated by Quay County Extension Agent, in cooperation with NMDA Wildlife services, and NM Cattle Growers Association.

Livestock Disease/ Agriculture & Food Safety Biosecurity (Quay County)
Impact for Livestock Disease/ Agriculture and Food Safety Bio-Security encompasses programs in live stock health management and Agriculture Bio-security throughout the years programming efforts. This plan was developed in response to the many issues plaguing New Mexico Agriculture the past several years.
Agro terrorism was brought on by Emergency Management personnel bringing awareness to how susceptible our food industry is to a nationwide outbreak of animal disease such as that in the United Kingdom with Foot and Mouth disease. Issues in Quay County within the past few years have included Bovine Trichomoniasis, parasites, rabies, and Tuberculosis status changes and management.
Quay Counties Agriculture Emergency plan is updated on an annual basis in cooperation with local and area emergency management, emergency personnel, State Police, City Law Enforcement, and County Sheriff. Animal health management is included in the Annual Tucumcari Bull Test as well as educating including cooperators in New Mexico’s Beef Quality Assurance program. Additionally, participants in the “Living on the Land” curriculum for small acreage owners spent one session on the importance of animal health, signs, symptoms, laws and regulations. Contact numbers for this plan include 850 participants through program participation, 320 people through on site one on one consultations and over 10,000 reached through new media (radio and newsletters).

Impact for Livestock Disease/Agriculture and Food Safety Bio-security includes programs in livestock health management and Agriculture Bio-security incorporated into regular annual programs.
This plan has been developed with the need of educating clientele in preventative measures for incidents surrounding livestock health and agro-terrorism. The development of a county emergency management plan continues to be an on-going venture with local and state partnerships.
This extension office has played an active and leading role in development and examination of Quay counties Agriculture Emergency Management plan. Local emergency agencies have also added plan details. Extension programming to landowners in the areas of emergency management and agriculture bio-terrorism has increased awareness and initiated proper planning of bio-security measures by 50%.
Other emerging issues continued in this plan include livestock health and wellness. Internal parasites for sheep and goats are a concern among producers due to an unusually warm winter. FAMACHA is a holistc method of parasite control for sheep by examining individual animals and treating only those showing signs of anemia. Workshop and on site visitation was done with 80% of sheep and goat producers in the county.
Tucumcari Bull Test incorporates many livestock health and prevention practices into potential herd sires. Yearling bull are vaccinated and screened for PvBVD, Trichomoniasis, Tuberculosis and curly calf syndrome. Current vaccinations are administered for potential viruses. The Pre Sale program addressed those parasites and diseases affecting the fertility of herd sires. Additionally, our Annual Ag. & Home Ec. Seminar hosted speakers on the topics of toxic weeds and the potential of feral swine being disease vectors for area livestock. Over 30 participants stated a significant increase of knowledge of toxic weeds to livestock while over 60% of participants of the feral swine presentation stated having no previous knowledge of diseases feral swine were capable of carrying.

Producers were faced with several consequential issues in the 07 - 08 year. Group meetings and informational seminars were held to inform and educate clientele. Events began in mid winter with a Bovine Trichomoniasis meeting with 98 in attendance. Next were a series of workshops and a table top exercise on Agriculture Biosecurity.
An advisory council was formed to educate Quay commissioners on Endangered species and the Grey wolf reintroduction program.
Lastly, with New Mexico losing it's TB status accreditation, NMLB state veterinarian was on hand to answer questions on 2008 USDA downgraded New Mexico’s Tuberculosis (TB) status from Accredited Free (AF) to Modified Accredited Advanced (MAA)(100 in attandance).
Attandance reached more than 60% of Quay county producers with an average of 92% stating that they came away from the program with more information and knowledge than they had before the program.

Tomas Dominguez has signed on to support Livestock Disease and Veterinary Care within Quay County.