The cattle industry, one of the five “C's” of Arizona’s bedrock economy, is still taken seriously here. And the importance of maintaining the safety of livestock has grown even as the state’s consumers have come to far outnumber the cattlemen.
The University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences will host the second annual National Livestock Emergency Response Conference from Dec. 5-7 in Tucson. The conference is co-sponsored by Arizona Livestock Incident Response Team and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
The three-day meeting will offer opportunities for a variety of emergency responders to expand their networks and enhance their response capabilities.
The goal of the conference organizers is to provide information and training to a diverse audience, including veterinarians, livestock producers, cooperative extension, emergency planners, and state and federal agency personnel.
The conference will feature up-to-date information on a diverse selection of livestock disease emergency response topics. Attendees will be able to participate in several scenario-based, ground training exercises. These will focus on hypothetical incidents that could occur along Arizona's international border and at confined animal feeding operations, as well as on the potential impact on food safety.
Those who attend should gain information they need to ensure the safety of Arizona cattle, on which the state's economy has long relied along with the other "C's": citrus, copper, climate and cotton.
The Veterinary Diagnostic Lab and the animal sciences department at the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have partnered with the Arizona State Veterinarian's Office, the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association and the United States Department of Agriculture to create the Arizona Livestock Incident Response Team, known as ALIRT.
ALIRT has developed an emergency response plan to deal with real and potential problems that has become a model for other states and regions. It addresses safety concerns that livestock producers face when responding to a disease outbreak, how to control it and how to send information that needs to be relayed quickly to the public.
Bob Kattnig, professor
UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Animal Sciences Department
Cell: 520-349-5607