USDA Releases Report on Economic Impacts of Foreign Animal Disease

As more is learned about the impacts of foreign animal-disease outbreaks, questions arise regarding the efficacy of existing animal disease-impact models for capturing the array of effects across many economic sectors and time.

Previous models lacked adequate treatment of either the economic components or the epidemiological components, and, in some cases, both. This report, by By Philip L. Paarlberg, Ann Hillberg Seitzinger, John G. Lee and Kenneth H. Mathews Jr., presents a quarterly livestock and crop modeling framework in which epidemiological model results are integrated with an economic model of the U.S. agricultural sector to estimate the economic impacts of outbreaks of foreign-source livestock diseases.

The framework can be applied to many livestock diseases and this study uses the model to assess the results of a hypothetical outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). Model results show large trade-related losses for beef, beef cattle, hogs, and pork, even though relatively few animals are destroyed. The best control strategies prove to be those that reduce the duration of the outbreak.

Download the full report here.