Bird flu’s growing impact calls for urgent action at international summit

By Jenifer Fouch
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — As highly pathogenic avian influenza continues to infect more than just birds, scientists and industry professionals want to prevent it from infecting more species and continuing to impact animal and human health, the environment and the economy.

CLUCKING UP SOLUTIONS — Guillermo Tellez-Isaias, the chairman of the summit leads opening remarks at the 2024 Internaional Avian Influenza Summit. (U of A System Division of Ag photo)

The four-day International Avian Influenza and One Health Emerging Issues Summit hosted by the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science had a total of 1,270 registered participants from 51 countries, in-person and virtually, to share and learn more about HPAI, or highly pathogenic avian influenza, and other diseases impacting animals and humans.

Guillermo Tellez-Isaias, the chairman of the summit and retired research professor for the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science and the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, says there are other threats to animal and human health in addition to the bird flu.

"The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus has naturally been able to adapt to species that it never infected before. If it fully adapts to humans, COVID-19 will look like a small cold compared to what this virus could cause," Tellez-Isaias said, comparing its threat to the Spanish flu in 1918. "So, that's why we wanted to have this summit, to create awareness for people worldwide."

Tellez-Isaias said participants at the summit will produce a document with guidelines and recommendations for national and international health authorities, based on group discussions and expert presentations, to help guide future efforts in combating highly pathogenic avian influenza and other emerging health threats.

The Center of Excellence for Poultry Science is part of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the University of Arkansas Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. The center performs the three land grant missions of teaching — carried out through Bumpers College — and research and extension through the Division of Agriculture’s Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service.

After a successful inaugural event in 2023, Tellez-Isaias said, organizers expanded the scope in the second year to include other emerging issues affecting cattle, swine, bees, humans and more as part of the One Health concept, which emphasizes that animal, human and environmental health are all interconnected.

"The first two days, we focused on highly pathogenic avian influenza, but not only in poultry. We extended it to wild and commercial animals, including dairy," Tellez-Isaias said. "And we discussed avian influenza and other diseases, including exotic diseases like the African swine fever, which is already in our backyard in the Dominican Republic. It's something we are keeping an eye on."

Urgency of collaboration

Tellez-Isaias says it's urgent to focus on these diseases globally, as bird flu has spread to different species in all continents including  Antarctica.

"These diseases know no borders," he said.

Members of industry, governmental and regulatory agencies, and scientists from around the world presented their work at the summit. Tellez-Isaias said their findings could improve animal health overall and potentially contribute to minimizing the impacts of bird flu and other viruses.

From the Division of Agriculture, Sami Dridi, professor of poultry science, talked about poultry production sustainability, specifically heat stress challenges and potential mechanism-based strategies. Dridi's research includes working with chickens bred to conserve water while maintaining growth under heat stress. He found that water efficiency is improving with each new generation and has the potential to expand with application to other poultry operations, such as turkeys and ducks.

Tomi Obe, assistant professor with the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science and the poultry science department, presented research on pre- and post-harvest strategies for salmonella control in poultry production. She discussed different methods to consider at feed mills, farms and the processors. Obe is also part of the Arkansas Center for Food Safety within the food science department.

PROTECTING POULTRY — Jada Thompson, assistant professor of agricultural economics and agribusiness with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, gave an overview of how highly pathogenic avian influenza affected egg prices and resulted in other economic impacts. (U of A System Division of Ag photo)

Jada Thompson, assistant professor in the agricultural economics and agribusiness department, talked about the economic impacts of highly pathogenic avian influenza, including how the disease impacts producers and consumers.  

Bill Potter, associate professor and extension poultry specialist with the Division of Agriculture, discussed One Health strategies to optimize poultry intestinal integrity and pre-harvest food safety. He discussed proposed regulations around salmonella and shared research showing the efficacy of implementing vaccines in poultry.

Adnan Alrubaye, assistant professor of poultry science, talked about management practices to mitigate lameness in broiler chickens caused by specific bacteria.

Those attending the summit included both international and local researchers, veterinarians and private sector professionals.  

Amanda Bray, a poultry science alumna and co-owner of Northwest Arkansas Veterinary Services in Springdale, said staying informed on industry trends domestically and internationally helps her learn what services to offer.

"Our primary focus is the poultry and dairy industries,” Bray said. “And [bird flu] is a very big problem. So, the more knowledge I have, the better I know how to support others in the industry and what tests we need to develop and offer."

United front for global health

Liliana Monroy is founder and CEO of Natural Animal Health, a company providing gut health products to producers. Monroy said she has garnered a long-trusting relationship with researchers with the Division of Agriculture, and that “collaboration is vital” to fight highly pathogenic avian influenza.

"If you want to be successful, you have to go to the people who know more,” Monroy said. “And you need to work very closely with professors and researchers. We cannot work in silos. Since we come from different backgrounds, we need to unite efforts with doctors, environmental entities, leaders in the private sector, and so on, to stop what's going on."

Monroy, who also presented during the conference, says biosecurity protocols, although crucial to preventing the spread of bird flu, have also created many roadblocks for businesses and producers.

The International Avian Influenza Summit was hosted by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, and the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science. The American College of Poultry Veterinarians and the American Veterinary Medical Association approved the conference for continuing education credits with 23 and 26 CE credits respectively and the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization with 12 CE credits. The event was held at the Don Tyson Center for Agricultural Sciences in Fayetteville, Sept. 30 through Oct. 3.

To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on X at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.

Fact sheet offers risk analysis for poultry contract growers

By Mary Hightower
U of A System Division of Agriculture

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Last year’s closure of chicken processing plants in North Little Rock and Van Buren sparked a few questions in economist Jada Thompson’s mind.

“One of the questions was about what kind of risk was associated with lending and the risks involved for new producers,” said Thompson, an assistant professor for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture who specializes in the economics of poultry. 

The poultry industry is vertically integrated, which means poultry companies contract with growers and supply those growers with birds and feed. The growers supply the rest, including barns, electricity, water and labor. The industry is a big deal in Arkansas, which produced 7.35 billion pounds of broilers in 2022, ranking it third in the U.S. broiler production. The critical step between farm and consumer is the processing plant.

The recent closure of two Arkansas processing plants sparked a few questions in poultry economist Jada Thompson's mind. (U of A Sytem Division of Agriuclture file photo).

Thompson said that risk is part of any enterprise and in the case of the plant closures, growers had to figure out what to do with the houses they have to raise birds. Some growers had their contracts switched to a nearby plant with the same integrators, while others’ contracts were bought out and had scramble to find places to contract to process their poultry to ensure continued cash flow.

“In the unfortunate circumstances there isn’t another plant or integrator within a drivable distance, and assuming no alternative use of poultry growing complexes, the growers have no incoming revenues to pay debt obligations,” she said.

All of this led Thompson to invite grad student Kylie Roseler, to analyze the risks. Shelby Rider, a program associate brought Geographic Information System skills and fellow assistant professor Ryan Loy who brought his farm business management knowledge.

The result of this collaboration is the fact sheet Location, Location, Location: Mapping the Risks for Arkansas Broiler Production, which evaluates the risks for poultry producers and lenders by quantifying low, average, medium or high-risk areas. Among the factors the authors identified in determining risk level was the local cost of electricity, the location of feed mills, tax liabilities and the proximity of processing plants.

For example, their research showed that low-risk areas typically have more than four processing plants in their radius and in the lowest 50 percent for electric rates, whereas high-risk zones typically have only one processing plant and typically are in the top 50 percent of electric rates.

Using these factors, the team developed a map showing areas of highest risk, being in Jefferson County, which has only one integrator, and lowest risk, in northwest Arkansas, where there is a high concentration of integrators.

And while “this map may reinforce the idea of increased processing plant concentration in the poultry industry, where financial risks are lower. However, poultry is a living industry susceptible to biological hazards such as Avian Influenza, Newcastle, or Marek’s disease. These diseases spread rapidly when houses are in close proximity.”

The fact sheet concludes that “having high risk doesn’t mean that a location isn’t a worthy investment, just that there are obstacles a grower could face. Overall, this risk map aims to provide information so that informed decisions can be made.”

Meant for producers and lenders
“This fact sheet is going to be extremely helpful to chicken farmers,” Loy said. “If you're looking to get into the industry, you can use this fact sheet and say, ‘here are the riskiest areas of production in terms of the cost of electricity and the number of processors that are within some reasonable distance of you. You can look at the fact sheet and say, where are the least risky areas to poultry farm?

“On the lending side, the less risky you are, the more attractive you are to a lender,” he said. “A lender can see the location, evaluate the risk and that can come into play when it comes to securing credit.”

Takeaways
Roesler, who graduates May 2025 with a joint degree from the University of Arkansas and Ghent University in agricultural economics and rural development, said she became involved by “shifting from a scientific perspective of agriculture to the economic side.

“During my undergraduate studies in poultry science, I started to understand the growing importance of food security,” Roesler said. “However, through internships working on a farm and in a lab, I found my niche skills and how I can contribute to improving food security is through economic means.”

She said the most surprising thing about this project was “how the interests of individual producers might not align with the overall stability of the industry.”

As noted in the conclusion, “the consolidation of the industry is advantageous for a farmer’s contract security but poses a biosecurity risk,” Roesler said. “This observation was particularly significant for me, given that my thesis examines these disease risks in the context of international trade.”

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on X and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on X at @AgInArk.

THANKSGIVING: Resilient turkey industry rebounds from HPAI, adapts to evolving market

By John Lovett
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Here’s one thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: more turkey.

SUPPLY LINE — Jada Thompson, assistant professor of agricultural economics and agribusiness, said an increase in turkeys grown this year has helped push prices down. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo)

Enough turkey has been produced with the rebound from bird flu last year that exports have increased in 2023 and are projected to continue that trend in 2024 based on lower prices for U.S.A.-grown turkey, the latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates shows.

“The supplies are looking good, and prices are looking a lot better for the consumer than last year,” said Jada Thompson, assistant professor of agricultural economics and agribusiness with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “We had highly pathogenic avian influenza last year. That took away a lot of our supplies and drove up the price, so consumers were pinched a little at the store along with some inflationary effects.”

The average price per pound for an 8- to-16-pound whole frozen turkey is now about $1.15 per pound, according to an Oct. 23 U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service report. This price is about 35 percent lower than the same time last year.

To help the turkey industry make projections for processing, Thompson is taking into consideration the potential for a change in turkey consumption preferences.

“I think there are some slight changes that are happening to our Thanksgiving plates, and that might shift from a whole turkey to a turkey breast,” Thompson said. “There is a slight demand change for processed turkeys versus just a whole turkey, but I think that turkey is still the center point of a Thanksgiving meal right now.”

Arkansas is third in national ranking of turkey production, according to the latest USDA Turkeys Raised report. Arkansas turkey farmers collectively increased production by 6 percent to 27.5 million turkeys. The largest turkey-producing state is Minnesota with 39 million turkeys, up 5 percent from the previous year. North Carolina has produced 29 million turkeys this year, up 4 percent from a year ago.

TURKEY REBOUND — The number of turkeys grown in the United States increased 4 percent in 2023 to an estimated 219 million, based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service. (U of A System Division of Agriculture graphic)

The USDA’s annual “Turkeys Raised” report estimates 219 million turkeys were raised in 2023, a 4 percent increase over 2022 and 1 percent more than the levels that preceded the outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI.

Bird flu impact

HPAI has reemerged this fall. APHIS reports about 880,000 recent losses to HPAI on turkey farms in Minnesota, South Dakota and Utah. However, the supply for the Thanksgiving has already been harvested, Thompson said. Typical placements for Thanksgiving start in July.

“We are keeping an eye on the current outbreaks of HPAI in turkeys,” Thompson said. “While it is concerning to think about the birds lost, in perspective, more than 46 million turkeys will be eaten on Thanksgiving. We had strong placement numbers, cold storage, eggs in incubators, and production efficiencies coming into the holiday that will help ease the burden of the recent cases.” 

Turkeys take about 28 days to incubate, and once hatched they take at least 14 weeks to grow for harvest; 18 weeks for larger birds. This is compared to four to eight weeks’ growing time for broiler chickens. Improved biosecurity and ongoing modernization of poultry houses are contributing factors in the bird flu fight, Thompson noted. Modernization of the houses includes changes in the walls and technology for better ventilation, temperature and humidity regulation and pest control, and litter management.

“The turkey industry has done a lot over the past couple of years to account for HPAI, biosecurity being a predominant one,” Thompson said. “I think there is a lot of modernization, a lot of investments going into turkey farms here and all over the U.S.”

Since 2022, a deadly strain of avian influenza called H5N1 has affected more than 59 million birds, across 47 states. The only confirmed HPAI outbreak in Arkansas was last year at a commercial broiler chicken facility.

Ongoing research by poultry scientists to understand the H5N1 strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza has allowed producers to “get ahead of it a little — as much as you can to a disease you can’t control,” Thompson said.

In addition to biosecurity measures, there have also been improvements in surveillance monitoring from the farm level all the way up to state, regional and federal levels, she said.

Who’s eating turkey?

According to the Poultry Site, Israel is the largest per capita consumer of turkey at 22 pounds, compared to 17 pounds in the United States. Mexico accounted for more than half of U.S. turkey exports. While turkey is consumed throughout the year, Thanksgiving and Christmas are peak times.

Thompson, a northwest Arkansas native, is among a small group of agricultural economists who specialize in poultry. She earned bachelor’s degrees in poultry science and agricultural economics, followed by a master’s degree in agricultural economics at the University of Arkansas. She earned her doctorate in agricultural economics in 2016 at Colorado State University, before serving as an assistant professor for five years at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu.

Arkansas ag econ professor Jada Thompson wins SAEA Emerging Scholar Award

By John Lovett
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Jada Thompson, assistant professor in the department of agricultural economics and agribusiness in the University of Arkansas System, was recently recognized with the Southern Agricultural Economics Association’s 2023 Emerging Scholar Award for research.

EMERGING SCHOLAR — Jada Thompson is a 2023 Emerging Scholar Award recipient from the Southern Agricultural Economics Association. The agricultural economist has focused much of her work on HPAI bird flu. (U of A System Division of Ag photo by Fred Miller)

Thompson, an economist with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, has spent much of her academic career researching bird flu’s economic impact.

She said the new strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 poses a longer-running risk on the supply chain and may lead to structural changes in poultry production. The 2022 bird flu epidemic has raised questions about how the poultry industry proceeds.

The agricultural economics and agribusiness department now has three SAEA Emerging Scholar Award-winning faculty. Brandon McFadden, professor and the Tyson Endowed Chair in Food Policy Economics, and Trey Malone, assistant professor, were recognized with the award in 2019 and 2022, respectively.

“Dr. Thompson has established an outstanding record of research, with nearly 40 peer-reviewed publications including not only high-impact journal articles but also Extension publications summarizing stakeholder-relevant work,” John Anderson, head of the agricultural economics and agribusiness department, stated in his nomination letter for the award.

Anderson, who is also director of the Fryar Price Risk Management Center of Excellence, stated that Thompson’s record shows that she is a versatile researcher who is able to apply her skill set to a variety of relevant problems. A common thread that is evident in her work is the link between farm-level production issues and market impacts, he said.

“This is an increasingly important line of inquiry, as her work on both domestic and international market impacts of animal disease outbreaks demonstrates,” Anderson wrote. “This kind of integrated research requires not only a solid economics toolkit but also a thorough understanding of both production systems and agricultural markets. Any one of these facets of the work is difficult to master. Dr. Thompson ably integrates her mastery of all three.”

Anderson noted Thompson’s work is highly collaborative with economists from a wide range of institutions and experts from other relevant disciplines. Her proficiency extends to the extension and teaching mission areas, where she engaged directly with stakeholders, Anderson added.

“She is an excellent instructor, having already taught a variety of courses at three different land-grant institutions,” Anderson said. “Dr. Thompson has also actively engaged in service activities, both in our department and within the profession. Across all aspects of her faculty work, Dr. Thompson is productive, hard-working, and unfailingly collegial. She is rapidly emerging as a leader within our profession.”

Malone said the SAEA Emerging Scholar award is national in scope and a “premier designation” for early career faculty members in agricultural economics.

“Jada’s applied research program as a poultry economist is top-notch, so it’s fantastic to see such a hypercompetitive award acknowledge her hard work,” Malone said.

Thompson, a northwest Arkansas native, is among a small group of agricultural economists who specialize in poultry, Anderson said. She has a long history with the University of Arkansas, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural economics there. For her bachelor’s degree, Thompson double-majored in poultry science and agricultural economics. In June, she returned as an assistant professor following five years as an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

She earned her doctorate in 2016 at Colorado State University.

“When you come into agriculture as a woman, there is a smaller subset of us, and to get this award is validating and exciting,” Thompson said. “To be nominated was humbling and to win was very nice.”

2022 HPAI potential impacts

As part of the award, Thompson will give a presentation on her investigations into the economic ramifications of this highly pathogenic avian influenza — HPAI — at the SAEA annual symposium in February in Oklahoma City. Her talk will provide a comprehensive overview of HPAI, the differences between the 2015 and 2022 outbreaks, market impacts and her analysis of how the event may change the poultry sector.

“In animal health economics it is important to push the boundaries of information gathering, analysis and multidisciplinary work because of this concept of ‘One Health,’ that plants, animals and humans are interconnected on local, regional, national and global levels,” Thompson said.

Some of the discussion around HPAI include continued research on a cost-beneficial aerosol vaccine that would be the most practical option for inoculating tens of thousands of birds at once. H5N1 has had a bigger impact on turkeys and laying hens, however, because older birds are more susceptible to the virus, Thompson noted. Broilers, the largest sector of Arkansas’ poultry industry, are harvested after about two months of growth.

Questions remain on what the producer response should be if the H5N1 strain continues into 2023, Thompson said. How much to increase production to compensate for potential losses and changes in placements are at the top of the list because of issues with increased food prices and potential fear in the marketplace of continued disruptions.

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu.