Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

A newsletter for faculty, staff and students

July-August 2004 • Vol. 30, No. 4

Division of Agriculture to operate state poultry testing lab

(From an article by Christopher Leonard, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7-15-04, with changes in parentheses.)

SPRINGDALE --- State officials have decided to build a new animal-testing laboratory at the University of Arkansas (Division of Agriculture’s Arkansas Agricultural Research and Extension Center) in Fayetteville that will monitor commercial poultry flocks for diseases like the avian flu.

The lab would replace a state-run facility in Springdale, which officials say must be closed because it is outdated. Poultry companies say it’s critical to have a testing lab in the region to quickly identify disease outbreaks.

After announcing in May that the Springdale lab will close, state officials met with poultry industry representatives to devise a plan for keeping a lab open in Northwest Arkansas.

Gov. Mike Huckabee said in an e-mail statement Wednesday that the decision to build the new lab was a cooperative one between his office, the Arkansas Poultry and Livestock Commission and The Poultry Federation industry group.

Morril Harriman, executive vice president of The Poultry Federation in Little Rock, said he is pleased with the decision made Tuesday.

Monitoring millions of chickens raised in Northwest Arkansas for diseases is important to keep export markets open. The laboratory in Springdale documents that flocks are healthy and allows companies to respond quickly if a case is discovered. If that lab was closed, poultry companies would be forced to mail samples to Little Rock or out of state for testing. (Though mostly devoted to poultry, the lab also provides some diagnostic services for cattle and other livestock.)

The Poultry and Livestock Commission, a state agency that regulates meat producers, owns and operates the Springdale laboratory. The new laboratory would be owned and operated by the University of Arkansas (Division of Agriculture), said Milo Shult, (the U of A System’s) vice president for agriculture.

Shult said the plan must be approved by the university’s board of trustees. He said a specific site hasn’t been picked for the lab, but it will be on university (Division of Agriculture) property in Fayetteville. He said it’s unclear how much construction will cost or how it will be paid for.
"The devil’s in the details," Shult said. "All parties have agreed in principle that this is a positive thing."

Though the university would administer the new laboratory, it will work closely with the livestock and poultry commission, Shult said.

If a rare disease is found, the state is required to implement an emergency plan that involves quarantining farms and sometimes destroying whole flocks.

"It’s not appropriate for the university to be in a regulatory role," Shult said. "Livestock and poultry [commission] would be the ones to make the determination if there was to be any kind of activity like quarantining."

Phil Wyrick, the commission’s executive director, said money for the Springdale laboratory’s annual budget will be shifted from the commission to the university (Division of Agriculture) to pay for the new laboratory.

The commission gets approximately $1 million annually to run the Springdale lab and the larger Arkansas Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Little Rock, which does similar work. Last year, about $300,000 went to the Springdale lab, said Dr. Paul Norris, director of the veterinary lab in Little Rock.

Shult said the Division’s Arkansas Agricultural Research and Extension Center is a good place for the laboratory because it could take advantage of the school’s (division’s) research labs and extension offices.

Walter Bottje, director of the university’s (Division’s) Center of Excellence for Poultry Science, said he envisions a collaborative relationship with the new diagnostic lab.

"There may be things that we can add to it," Bottje said. "These people are identifying diseased that are occurring out there, but they don’t take it past that point. We may be able to figure out some solutions that have not occurred before."

The livestock and poultry commission said in late April that it had to close the Springdale facility because it endangered the Little Rock laboratory’s national accreditation. The two labs were certified as one system by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians. That group said the Springdale lab, which was built in 1963, had to be overhauled or replaced in order for the Little Rock lab to remain accredited.

Shult said the university (Division of Agriculture) would take responsibility for getting the new lab accredited. He said the lab will be designed in tandem with poultry industry officials.