
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 9, 1994                   TAG: 9407120028
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TB-FREE STATUS RESTS WITH FARM TESTS

BLACKSBURG - The tuberculosis-free status of Virginia's beef industry could be reinstated as early as next month, if testing reveals that the disease was limited to the one Floyd County cattle herd where it was discovered, Virginia's agriculture commissioner said Friday.

The state is testing 24 cattle herds on farms within 1.5 miles of the Floyd County farm where a diseased herd was found earlier this year. Officials also are tracing the history of the herd, which has been slaughtered, to determine if any diseased cattle might have been purchased from another Virginia farm, said J. Carlton Courter III, appointed in April by Gov. George Allen to replace Clinton Turner as commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

If the state finds TB in cattle on more than one farm, it could lose its TB-free status for as long as two years, and if it's found on more than two farms, the status could be lost for up to five years, Courter said. TB-free status makes it easier to export Virginia cattle and market them in some states.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has given the state until Aug. 23 to show why the status, first gained by Virginia in 1988, should be reinstated. The fact that the afflicted 287-head Floyd County herd was essentially a "closed" herd since 1986 makes that task somewhat easier, he said.

He said he hoped the TB-free status would be restored by the fall cattle marketing season. The economic impact of its loss is not great now because not many cattle are being sold.

It's extremely rare for people to catch TB from eating beef, Courter said. Cooking meat at high temperatures eliminates the threat. The cattle, owned by Allen Harman, went to pet food and canned meat processors.

Courter made the comments at Virginia Tech's Animal Industry Day, where he spoke about the need to better market the state's farm products and his goal of making environmental regulation of agriculture less complicated and less economically burdensome.

Courter said one of his main jobs as commissioner is to promote growth and development of agriculture. Farmers have learned what consumers want and how to grow it; but their prosperity also depends on their ability to market and sell their products, he said.

"I think every person here today recognizes the need to balance reason and common sense with our regulatory commitments," he said.

Regulatory programs must be flexible enough to allow farmers, who account for 11.6 percent of the state's economy, to make the decisions quickly on what they need to earn to stay in business, he said.

One of the reasons Allen may have won office was the public's dissatisfaction with burdensome environmental regulations, Courter said. He said he would favor a simplified regulatory scheme for farmers that didn't involved so many different agencies and that would stress voluntary compliance with environmental goals.

by CNB