AFBI Economists give Webinar to the EuFMD

Dr Siyi Feng and Dr Myles Patton were invited to give a webinar on economic assessment of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) control strategies to the modelling network of the European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (EuFMD) recently.

EuFMD is one of the commissions within the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). EuFMD has set up seven networks for capacity building in different aspects of FMD management. The modelling network aims to “promote a better understanding of existing epidemiological and economic models that are used to inform contingency planning in Europe, and to improve dialog and awareness between model developers and model users.”

The webinar was based on research by the FAPRI-UK team at AFBI. Building on the epidemiology model results provided by the Animal and Plant Health Agency of the UK, AFBI economists have used the FAPRI-UK model to examine impacts on the commodity markets and the agricultural sector of various FMD control strategies following a hypothetical disease outbreak. Animal diseases of high impacts, such as FMD, will cause disruptions to the national market and change commodity prices, which in turn impact on the welfare of consumers and producers not directly affected by the disease. The sectoral-based approach complements the budgeting exercise regularly undertaken within epidemiological analyses and provides further insights in animal disease control.