Controlling Diseases

Dan General

diseases
Everett Griner talks about the money spent in preventing diseases in our food in today’s Agri View.

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When one shops for food one never stops to consider that a lot of what they spend buys them nothing. I mean a part of every dollar spent goes to pay the bill for controlling disease. This is especially true of meat products. Let me take you back to 2010. Over half of the world population lived in cities then. Over twenty billion animals were raised for food. The UK had paid out thirty billion dollars to control Foot and Mouth disease. Well now, almost seven years later, sources studying the animal diseases say the pathogens that cause such costly outbreaks are more numerous than they were back then. And it’s not just animals, there are plant pathogens, which have to be controlled. So when you total up the cost to feed your family at least ten percent went to pay for, or prevent, diseases.

That’s Agri View for today, I’m Everett Griner.

Image: Foot-and-mouth disease virus (capsid). This FMDV virus is the causative agent of foot-and-mouth disease. Credit:  molekuul_be/Shutterstock