Foot-and-Mouth Disease Impact on Smallholders - What Do We Know, What Don't We Know and How Can We Find Out More?

Abstract

SummaryFoot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) endemic regions contain three‐quarters of the world's FMD susceptible livestock and most of the world's poor livestock keepers. Yet FMD impact on smallholders in these regions is poorly understood. Diseases of low mortality can exert a large impact if incidence is high. Modelling and field studies commonly find high FMD incidence in endemic countries. Sero‐surveys typically find a third of young cattle are sero‐positive, however, the proportion of sero‐positive animals that developed disease, and resulting impact, are unknown. The few smallholder FMD impact studies that have been performed assessed different aspects of impact, using different approaches. They find that FMD impact can be high (>10% of annual household income). However, impact is highly variable, being a function of FMD incidence and dependency on activities affected by FMD. FMD restricts investment in productive but less FMD‐resilient farming methods, however, other barriers to efficient production may exist, reducing the benefits of FMD control. Applying control measures is costly and can have wide‐reaching negative impacts; veterinary‐cordon‐fences may damage wildlife populations, and livestock movement restrictions and trade bans damage farmer profits and the wider economy. When control measures are ineffective, farmers, society and wildlife may experience the burden of control without reducing disease burden. Foot‐and‐mouth disease control has benefitted smallholders in South America and elsewhere. Success takes decades of regional cooperation with effective veterinary services and widespread farmer participation. However, both the likelihood of success and the full cost of control measures must be considered. Controlling FMD in smallholder systems is challenging, particularly when movement restrictions are hard to enforce. In parts of Africa this is compounded by endemically infected wildlife and limited vaccine performance. This paper reviews FMD impact on smallholders in endemic countries. Significant evidence gaps exist and guidance on the design of FMD impact studies is provided.

Global Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Update and Gap Analysis: 2 - Epidemiology, Wildlife and Economics

“…The 28 identified peer-reviewed publications since June 2011 include a handful of field studies that estimate the economic impact of FMD on smallholders in endemic countries, mostly in South-East Asia (Shankar et al, 2012;Ferrari et al, 2014;Young et al, 2013Young et al, , 2014Jemberu et al, 2014;Nampanya et al, 2014Nampanya et al, , 2015a, and the topic has been recently reviewed (Knight-Jones and Rushton, 2016). FMD control in endemic countries is complex (Young et al, 2015) and has traditionally been deemed a lesser priority, particularly for countries without the potential to benefit from FMD-free export markets.…”

Global Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Update and Gap Analysis: 1 - Overview of Global Status and Research Needs

“…Although a disease of low overall mortality, FMD places a huge burden on both individual livestock keepers and national economies (Fogedby, ; James and Rushton, ; Sutmoller et al., ; Knight‐Jones and Rushton, , ). It is a viral disease (family: Picornaviridae , genus: Aphthovirus ) affecting cloven‐hoofed animals, the epidemiologically and economically most important hosts being cattle and water buffalo, pigs, sheep and goats.…”

“…These include wildlife reservoirs of disease, under‐resourced veterinary services with limited capacity for outbreak detection and implementation of control measures, variable motivation of livestock owners and governments to control the disease, dependence on husbandry practices that facilitate disease transmission (such as use of frequent trading and movements, communal grazing and nomadism or transhumance), unreliable vaccine cold chains, and livestock that are difficult to access for vaccination and inspection. This is a pressing concern as FMD production losses have their greatest impact on the world's poorest countries, where more people are directly dependent on livestock (Knight‐Jones and Rushton, ).…”

“…The annual global impact of FMD in endemic regions amounts to between 6.5 and 21 billion USD resulting from visible production losses and vaccination costs, while outbreaks in FMD‐free countries and zones cause additional losses exceeding 1.5 billion USD per year (Knight‐Jones and Rushton, ). FMD is frequently listed as the most economically important disease of livestock in many developed and developing countries (Perry and Randolph, ; Perry and Rich, ,b; Perry et al., ; Perry and Grace, ; Rushton and Knight‐Jones, ; Grace et al., ; Knight‐Jones and Rushton, ).…”

The disappearance of water buffalo from agrarian landscapes in Western China

“…Reductions in buffalo numbers in these regions are sometimes attributed to proximate causes such as sudden cold spells or disease outbreaks—including foot and mouth disease—but these factors did not come into play in the case studies we detail (see Bonnin, ; Knight‐Jones, McLaws, & Rushton, ). More generally, the literature mainly posits that underlying causes such as agricultural modernization processes, including mechanization and agricultural intensification, have convinced farmers to invest less time and energy in taking care of their buffalo herds (FAO, ).…”