Protecting Poultry & Dairy Farms from Bird Flu Outbreaks Linked to Wild Waterfowl

Program Contact

Dr. LaKisha Odom
lodom@foundationfar.org

Maurice Pitesky

Dr. Maurice Pitesky

AgriNerds Inc.

Year Awarded  2024

FFAR award amount   $148,111

Total award amount   $300,222

Location   Davis, CA

Program   Rapid Outcomes from Agricultural Research

Matching Funders   AgriNerds Inc.

Protecting Poultry & Dairy Farms from Bird Flu Outbreaks Linked to Wild Waterfowl

The current H5N1 influenza, commonly called bird flu or avian influenza, outbreak is impacting the U.S. agriculture system at an unprecedented level, resulting in the loss of millions of poultry and costing producers and consumers billions of dollars. H5N1 is highly transmissible and results in nearly 100% fatality among infected chickens. As a result, once the disease is on-farm producers must move quickly to stop the spread to other flocks by depopulating exposed flocks. Recent occurrences of the virus in dairy cattle and swine have raised additional concerns about the threat to the U.S. food supply.

Data show that 85% of the recent commercial outbreaks in the U.S. were caused by contact with wild birds, not farm-to-farm spread, and waterfowl are the primary reservoir, or host, of H5N1. On-farm operational and physical biosecurity are fundamental to protecting U.S. poultry and dairy; however, outward-facing biosecurity is a novel and underutilized approach to understanding on-farm risk of H5N1.

To inform producers of potential risks to their operations, researchers led by Dr. Maurice Pitesky, associate specialist in cooperative extension at the University of California-Davis and chief executive officer at AgriNerds, are developing a risk model that identifies historic, current and anticipated future location data of roosting waterfowl in close proximity to commercial poultry and dairy operations.

Maurice Pitesky
The technology for the WFAN, which includes the nation’s 160 weather radar and Landsat satellite, demonstrate how we can leverage our infrastructure to build software tools to help ensure our food security. This FFAR grant leverages over a decade of USDA funded academic research by UC Davis, USGS and the University of Delaware. Dr. Maurice Pitesky
Chief Executive Officer, AgriNerds Inc.

Fortifying On-Farm Biosecurity with External Surveillance

Using a combination of weather radar and satellite imagery, this project will provide participating farmers with maps of waterfowl abundance near their farms, allowing farmers to plan for potential outbreaks and federal, state and local governments to allocate resources accordingly. The risk models are made daily and can be used to analyze historic and forecasted patterns of waterfowl roosting at high spatio-temporal (daily at 250m resolution) granularity.

The data from this research will be aggregated into the Waterfowl Alert Network (WFAN), the first and only remote sensing tool designed for agriculture. Providing farmers with granular real-time data on waterfowl abundance will help farmers better understand their biosecurity needs and associated costs of prevention strategies, such as installing vehicle wash stations and fencing.

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