Deadly deer disease diagnosed in four Eastern Washington cows

Chris McGann
Communications

Controlling midges is the best defense against EHD.

Four cows in Franklin and Walla Walla counties were diagnosed this week with Epizootic Hemorrhagic disease (EHD), a potentially deadly virus that primarily effects wild deer populations but occasionally crosses over to cattle.

Cattle owners should be on the lookout for EHD symptoms such as excessive drooling, lethargy, difficulty walking, or oral and nasal lesions with ulceration, which are similar to the much more devastating foot-and-mouth disease.

Fever and anorexia due to the oral erosions were seen in the recently diagnosed cattle. Supportive care is the only treatment for infected cows.

Differentiating EHD from other animal diseases requires laboratory testing so you should contact your veterinarian if you observe these symptoms.

“Although EHD is seldom prevalent in cattle, we must show an abundance of caution and investigate each case due to the similarity of symptoms this disease has with the highly contagious and economically disastrous foot-and-mouth disease,” said Washington State Veterinarian Dr. Brian Joseph.

EHD is not a threat to human health.

The disease usually occurs in cattle where environmental conditions support large populations of biting midges.

Biting midges or Culicoides gnats, commonly known as “no-see-ums” are the main way the disease is spread. Female biting midges can ingest blood from infected animals and then feed on uninfected animals. These midges typically breed near mud, so EHD outbreaks often occur when cattle congregate in wet areas.

All ruminants can be affected, but generally it is a deer disease.

No vaccines for EHD are available for EHD so controlling the midges by eliminating standing water from areas used by cows, applying insecticides around water areas to decrease the swarms, or using bug repellent on the cows is the best defense.

In the coming weeks, the cool fall weather and frost is expected to limit the gnat population and the spread of the disease.

For more information visit WSDA’s Animal Services Division web page.

WSDA joins the national call to reduce food waste

Chris McGann
Communications

In the U.S., more than one-third of all available food goes uneaten through loss or waste. Food is the single largest type of waste in our daily trash.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1.3 billion tons of food worth nearly $680 billion are wasted each year. In Washington, more than 350,000 tons of edible food was disposed of in landfills in 2015.

WSDA Director Derek Sandison (L) speaks
with a colleague at the NASDA conference.
* credit NASDA 

For the industry that feeds the world and also depends on limited, costly and increasingly scarce resources, that’s an unsustainable problem that needs to be addressed and it’s one of the big issues addressed this month at the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) annual meeting.

NASDA, a non-profit organization supporting agriculture, held its annual conference in New Mexico this year, drawing agriculture leaders from around the country, including WSDA Director Derek Sandison. Conference attendees discuss a broad range of food policy issues, including food waste.

Director Sandison joined NASDA members at the meeting as they adopted a new policy on food waste that follows the group’s “Pledge to End Food Waste.”

"Agriculture both defines and demands sustainability," he said. "It’s too costly to the agriculture industry, the environment and the people who rely on the nutritious food we work so hard to produce to let it go to waste."

WSDA has joined NASDA's pledge to support:

• public policies that offer opportunities to reduce, recover and recycle food waste.
• efforts to improve coordination and communication among federal, state and municipal stakeholders to use resources more efficiently and effectively to address food waste.
• the food waste hierarchy framework.
• research efforts and new technologies that address reduction and recovery of food waste.

Waste reduction in Washington 

Washington state has already adopted a waste-reduction goal shared by our federal partners.

For more than a year, WSDA worked with lawmakers, stakeholders and other agencies to craft food-waste-reduction legislation that was passed this year.

The newly approved legislation directs the state Department of Ecology to develop a plan to cut food-waste in half by 2030 in consultation with WSDA and the Department of Health.

To achieve that waste-reduction goal, the first step is preventing food waste in the first place, then rescuing edible food that would go to waste and getting it to hungry people. When that’s not possible, recovering the nutrients in that food through composting and anaerobic digesters is another option.

WSDA's role in waste reduction 

WSDA is leading two stakeholder engagement groups – one for food businesses and one for hunger relief professionals.

This month, WSDA organized a meeting of stakeholders from Kroger, Washington Hospitality Association, Pasco Farmers Market, the Washington Dairy Council and the Washington State Tree Fruit Association. The group shared ideas, voiced their concerns, and let us know what they’ve been doing to to reduce food waste in their respective industries.

Over the coming months, WSDA will engage experts in food safety, food waste collection and conversion, education and behavioral change, hunger relief and food business as partners in developing the plan.

Drafts of the Washington Food Waste Reduction Plan are scheduled to be available in spring 2020, with a final plan ready by September 2020.

Application process now open for 2020 Specialty Crop Block Grants

Leisa Schumaker

Specialty Crop Block Grant Program

Raspberries are one of the many crops eligible for Specialty
Crop Block Grants. 

WSDA is now accepting Concept Proposals for the 2020 Specialty Crop Block Grant Program.

The program uses a competitive solicitation process to award USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP) funds for projects that enhance the competitiveness of Washington’s specialty crops.

In order to submit a concept proposal, please go to the Specialy Crop Block Grant Program web page for more information and a link to create an application account.  All concept proposals are due November 4, 2019, 4:00 p.m. PST. This is a link to the formal 2020 Request for Proposals (RFP).

All prospective applicants are encouraged to thoroughly read the RFP for eligibility and application requirements before beginning the application process.  Applicants are also encouraged to start the application process early to provide adequate time to ensure a complete and thorough proposal is submitted.

Eligible organizations include

• industry associations
• producer groups
• commodity commissions
• non-profit organizations
• for-profit organizations
• local, state, and federal government entities
• educational institutions

Projects cannot benefit a single commercial product. Projects cannot provide a profit to a single organization, institution, or individual. Recipients cannot use grant funds to compete with private companies.

Specialty crops include

• fruits and vegetables
• tree nuts
• dried fruits
• horticulture
• nursery crops (including floriculture)

Eligible specialty crop plants are cultivated for food, medicinal purposes, or beautification. Processed goods should consist of more than 50 percent of the specialty crop by weight.

For any questions regarding the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program’s requirements or eligibility, please e-mail Leisa Schumaker or call 360-902-2091.

State receives $4.79 million for Specialty Crop Block Grants

Leisa Schumaker

Specialty Crop Block Grant Program

The Specialty Crop Block Grant program awarded WSU
researcher Tom Collins money to assess the effect of
smoke on wine grapes and wine. He was one of 22
recipients announced this month.  

How can a vintner tell if the smoky air from a bad fire season is bad enough to damage grape and wine quality at an exposed vineyard? Not well enough, according to one Washington State University researcher who was recently awarded a grant of nearly a quarter of a million dollars to study a better way to assess the question.

During a vineyard smoke exposure from the wildfires that seem more and more common in recent years, smoke aroma compounds can be absorbed into skin cells of the grape berries and later extracted from the skins into the wine during the fermentation process. But the industry’s method of determining when the exposure will actually taint the wine is inadequate, according to WSU researcher Tom Collins.

Collins is creating a systems-level metabolic network model using analytical tools and machine-learning techniques to take into account wine variety, smoke composition, and fermentation time to create a risk assessment for smoke taint.

The grant is one of 22 projects funded by $4.79 million Washington State Department of Agriculture received from the United States Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant.

Specialty crops are defined as fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, horticulture, and nursery crops (including floriculture).

The Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBG) was created to support the competitiveness of the specialty crop industry through the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. In awarding these funds, WSDA selected projects that will directly benefit specialty crop producers, address critical issues to the industry, and contain strong performance measures.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) will fund 22 projects, with awards ranging from $51,000 to $500,000 to nonprofit and for-profit organizations, government entities, and universities. 

Projects were selected through a competitive two-phase process with a focus on Plant Health and Pest Management, Small Farm Direct Marketing/International Marketing, Soil Health, Food Safety, Innovative Technologies, Training and Education, as well as Innovative Technologies.

WSDA’s project abstracts for 2019 can be found here.

For information about the program, visit the SCBG webpage. To apply for one of next year’s grants, create an account at the 2020 Specialty Crop Block Grant page. For additional SCBG information, go to the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service webpage or contact WSDA’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program manager Leisa Schumaker or 360-902-2091.

Robotic milking: happy cows, happy farmers

Karla Salp
Communications

A robotic milker stops milking and starts to
 detach from the udder

You may remember the milk commercials from California – great milk comes from happy cows. However, happy cows don’t just come from California. Washington dairy farmers have long known this secret and continually find new ways to make their cows even happier.

Sometimes happier cows come from unexpected changes. We recently visited Twin Brook Creamery and learned how their dairy has changed over the years. One of the changes they mentioned was switching to robotic milking, with surprising benefits for both the cows and the farmer.

Robotic milking allows for automated milking of cows at any time of day. A stall is set up where the cows walk in as they wish. She gets a snack while a machine cleans her udder then uses lasers to attach the milking apparatus udder to milk the cow. There are many benefits for the cows:

• Milking on (the cow’s) demand - The robotic milking stalls are available all the time, so the cow gets milked on the schedule she chooses, rather than on the farmer’s schedule.
• Milking frequency - Some cows may choose to be milked three times a day, which puts less stress on the udder and improves comfort for the cow.
• Lower stress – Rather than having to be rounded up twice a day and herded back into the milking parlor, the cows come and go as they choose.



A cow being milked by a robotic milker

• Health checks – The robotic milker can detect issues in the milk that may indicate a health issue with the cow even before she shows signs of illness.

The cows appear to like the system, too, after getting used to it. When we visited, cows were lining themselves up, waiting for their turn to be milked.

But the cows aren’t the only winners here. Farmers benefit as well:

• Reduced labor – While labor is still required (the robotic milker will send cell phone alerts 24/7 if there is a problem) the overall time commitment for milking is greatly diminished. The farmer isn’t obliged to go to the milking parlor for hours twice a day, 365 days a year.
• Squeaky clean – Prior to milking, the robotic sensor cleans and sanitizes both the udder and teat, keeping the cow and milking surfaces clean and sanitary. While farmers do this as well, the robotic system can reduce any human error factors.
• No kicks – When milking by hand, the risk exists for the cow to kick the dairy farmer while milking, given how close they necessarily have to be to a cow’s hind legs. The hands-off system eliminates that risk.

While robotic milking is expensive to start and isn’t for every dairy, it is a great example of the diverse ways that dairy farmers are working to constantly improve their operations for not only themselves, but their cows as well.

Below is a video that shows a farm getting started with robotic milking.