This project will develop animal mortality management training and outreach materials for producers of dairy, beef, swine, and poultry animal feeding operations in texas

The Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service awarded a $147,719 cooperative agreement to the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service to develop animal mortality management training and outreach materials for animal agricultural producers in Texas. The award is being administered under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care federal grant program (CFDA 10.025), which aims to protect U.S. agriculture from economically injurious plant and animal diseases and pests.

Under the two-year award beginning March 7, 2022, the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service will produce an online animal mortality management course accessible through its website, deliver in-person workshops, and develop virtual reality field guides, an interactive online map of disposal resources, and a web platform. These materials will train and prepare dairy, beef, swine, and poultry producers on planning for and safely disposing of contaminated animal carcasses during a large-scale disease outbreak through established thermal, composting, rendering, burial and other methods. The project aims to improve knowledge and skills for humane and safe carcass disposal activities among Texas animal agriculture responders and producers.

The project seeks to address the information GAP in preparing and disposing of contaminated animal carcasses in an outbreak. We expect to raise awareness and preparedness of these audiences regarding what happens in catastrophic mortality caused by a large-scale disease outbreak. 2. Activities to be performed: we commit to offer workshops in collaboration with existing state-wide extension programs and produce scalable online learning content to be used as a reference for regular reference and emergency training in a diseases outbreak. The physical workshop and its online counterpart will cover planning, procedure, safety and biosecurity, and the cost of managing disease-contaminated animal carcasses. To foster intuitive understanding among audiences, virtual reality video field guides will be produced for thermal, composting, rendering, alkaline hydrolysis, burial, and other emerging methods for disposing of animal carcasses. An online map will be created to help audiences find carbon sources, storage facilities, burial sites, transportation, and other critical resources for carcass disposal. These online contents will be published on texas a & M agrilife extension website and disseminate via the agrilife extension county agent network. 3. Deliverables and expected outcomes: deliverables: an animal mortality management online course, which will be accessed through the texas a & M agrilife extension website. Deliver face-to-face mortality management workshops and promote online resources developed by the project, including the online course, resource finder, and VR field guides. Develop an interactive online map displaying critical resources and key contacts for animal mortality management in texas. Launch a texas animal mortality management web platform that helps audiences find the necessary information in one place. The platform will include the online course, interactive map, VR field guides, and web applications that allow the audience to share carcass-disposal-related information via short message, social media, or other available forms on the web. Deliver virtual field guide of specific animal carcass management methods in 360 VR video form. Outcomes: the project will produce technical, yet easy to understand, materials and courses explaining components of disposing of contaminated animal carcasses. Our proposed online course and face-to-face workshop will provide training available to dairy, beef, swine, and poultry producers throughout texas. The project will improve the knowledge and skills of texas animal agriculture responders and producers to conduct cattle, swine, and poultry carcass disposal activities humanely and safely in the event of a large-scale animal disease event. From another product of this project, producers will be able to use our interactive map to easily find and connect with local and state professionals involved in animal carcass disposal. These will include contract services, county agents, and other animal health and environmental professionals having roles in the disposal issue.