New World screwworm, HPAI underscore importance of food animal health, animal disease surveillance efforts
June 15, 2026
By Mary Hightower
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
Fast Facts
- Thompson: ‘Prevention is substantially cheaper than reaction.’
- Surveillance credited in prevention of ‘mad cow’ disease in U.S.
(1,239 words)
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The return of New World screwworm to the United States and the global struggle against highly pathogenic avian influenza demonstrate the importance of disease surveillance to protect food animal health, a team of agricultural economists said.
With the emergence of foot-and-mouth, “mad cow” disease and other epidemics, global animal agriculture has seen its share of losses over the decades.
Earlier this month New World Screwworm was confirmed in Texas and New Mexico after being largely eradicated from the United States in the 1960s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said screwworm does not pose a threat to the food system.
The consequences of how those diseases are tracked and contained front and center in “Lessons Learned in U.S. Animal Disease Surveillance for Commercial and Smallholder Systems in the Twenty-First Century,” an article from “Choices. The magazine of food, farm and resource issues,” published by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
Eruption of diseases in agriculture requires tailored responses, said Amy Hagerman, Oklahoma State University associate professor and extension specialist for agriculture and food policy. Hagerman was lead author on the article.
“Part of the reason we wanted to provide different examples from different diseases at different points in time is to highlight how it's a disease-specific risk that determines that surveillance structure and what it looks like,” Hagerman said.
While public attention may be focused, for example, on avian influenza mortality numbers and surveillance efforts by government agencies such as APHIS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, there are significant efforts and costs incurred by the private sector.
In the case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, or “mad cow disease,” the confirmation of a single case in 2003 became “the cow that stole Christmas because our whole country's international beef trade came to a screeching halt over one animal detection,” Hagerman said.
According to APHIS, “U.S. beef exports dropped 80 percent after 2003 and have not yet fully recovered.”
“Think about a lot of that loss accrued to those packing plants in that window of time,” Hagerman said.
“The beef cattle producers and the stockyards were highly motivated to effectively track anything that was detected and making sure that those high-risk materials were never part of the food product in the first place,” she said.
“And that's a very different strategy for surveillance and tracking than, for example, the preparedness happening around foot-and-mouth disease,” Hagerman said.
Introduction or re-emergence of a disease can lead to international trade disruptions “through the application of sanitary — animal health or food safety related — trade bans,” the authors said. “Robust surveillance systems reduce disease spread and identify areas of heightened risk as well as provide assurance and transparency of disease control to international trading partners.”
“Given the economic value of animals, a key question is whether sufficient resources have been allocated to efficiently utilize and to safeguard a changing animal health system,” the authors said.
In 2023, agriculture, food and related industries contributed roughly $1.53 trillion, or 5.6 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, according to numbers from USDA. The United States exported nearly $175 billion in agricultural products that year, with animals and animal products accounting for 18 percent, according to USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza
Jada Thompson, an associate professor of agricultural economics and agribusiness with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, was among the authors. Thompson contributed sections on poultry and eggs to the wide-ranging article.
She’s no stranger to the issue of HPAI disruptions in the poultry industry, having studied the first wave of the global disease as it hit the United States in 2014-15, as well as the current epidemic that has waxed and waned since 2022.
The 2014-2015 HPAI outbreak had very limited cases on broiler operations, but international trade bans contributed to sharp declines in exports in 2015. That year, 18 countries, including major poultry importers China and South Korea, imposed national bans after HPAI was first detected in December 2014, the authors said.
As the understanding of HPAI and surveillance has evolved, the trade embargoes changed.
“Several countries that implemented multistate or national trade embargoes in 2015 instead imposed county- or zone-based trade embargoes in 2022. Figures showed dramatic differences in the decline of exports of broiler meat between 2014 and 2022. In 2015, U.S. broiler exports fell 13.4 percent to 2.867 million metric tons due to HPAI-related import restrictions. The U.S. exported 3.822 million metric tons of broiler meat in 2022.
“Prevention is substantially cheaper than reaction,” Thompson said. “If we can detect and stop it in the early stages, we reduce the overall cost to the responders, government, the supply chain and consumers.
“It is hard to measure success, but success is early detection and eradication,” she said. “The true measure would need a counterfactual — a scenario where we didn’t detect and the disease spread. We don’t want to let that play out in real life to find out.”
Asked if enough resources were being directed toward animal disease surveillance, Thompson said, “I think anyone working in any field thinks there should be more investment. As we reallocate funding or prioritize where it can go, this does leave gaps.
“I think the main goal is to optimize the funding that is there, advocate for targeted programming, and provide evidence-based feedback to support the benefits of those programs,” Thompson said.
“Diseases will continue to exist. We can’t outspend the emergence, introduction or evolution of diseases, but we can have the quickest notification if one does emerge and mount the fastest response,” she said.
Other threats
HPAI hasn’t been the only threat. Virulent Newcastle disease spread largely in small and exhibition bird flocks in 2018-2020, posing different surveillance challenges compared to HPAI. Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, foot-and-mouth disease and BSE were discussed as emerging or continuing threats to animal agriculture.
BSE was first detected in the United Kingdom in 1986 and has since been found in 25 countries. The United States banned importation of cows in 1989, and the following year, initiated a surveillance program examining brain tissue from symptomatic cattle. In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration banned protein derived from mammalian tissue in feed for cattle. Since then, only a single case of Classical BSE has been found in the U.S.
Hagerman, who first started working in disease surveillance in 2006, said “it’s been an incredible evolution. Just looking back at that evolution over time of how policy, not just in the U.S., but also internationally, has changed around animal health.”
In addition to Hagerman and Thompson, the authors of the article were Amanda M. Countryman, a professor with the department of agricultural and resource economics at Colorado State University; Dustin L. Pendell, a professor with the department of agricultural economics at Kansas State University and the director of the Americas region for the World Organisation for Animal Health’s Collaborating Centre for the Economics of Animal Health; and Thomas L. Marsh, a distinguished professor with the Paul G. Allen School for Global Health and the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University.
The Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and OSU Ag Research are part of a system of agricultural research centers at 1862 and 1890 land-grant universities in the southern U.S., where scientists collaborate to conduct research and outreach focused on preserving the region’s natural resources and enhancing food production for a growing global population.
To learn more about ag and food research in Arkansas, visit aaes.uada.edu. Follow the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station on LinkedIn and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three system campuses.
Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.
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Media contact:
Nick Kordsmeier
nkordsme@uada.edu