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Kansas Ag Secretary talks HPAI

The Kansas Secretary of Ag says protecting animal health is crucial to expanding exports. 

Mike Beam tells Brownfield…

“We have to protect our livestock and also protect human health, so we have to understand that there are expectations by other countries,” he says. “For the most part we’ve been able to meet those expectations, especially if they’re built, on science.”

He says more needs to be done to protect producers from highly pathogenic avian influenza.

“We’ve been dealing with HPAI for several years now,” he says. “It popped up here in the United States, in poultry predominantly, but it was it was kind of an unusual situation when we discovered in that we actually had dairy cows that were positive also.”

Beam says HPAI across the agriculture industry has had a significant impact on producer profitability.

AUDIO: Mike Beam