Economic Impacts of Foreign-Source Animal Disease

This book presents a modelling framework in which epidemiological model results are integrated with an economic model of the U.S. agricultural sector to enable estimation of the economic impacts of outbreaks of foreign-source livestock diseases. To demonstrate the model, the study assessed results of a hypothetical outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). The modelling framework includes effects of the FMD episode on all major agricultural products and assesses these effects on aggregate supply, demand, and trade over 16 quarters. Model results show a potential for large trade-related losses for beef, beef cattle, hogs, and pork, though relatively few animals are destroyed. This model is more comprehensive than previous work because it has components for modelling both economic effects and disease-spread effects from an outbreak, for which the results can be integrated. It also assesses the effects of a disease outbreak on major agricultural sectors- livestock and crops- along vertical market chains, from production to consumption. Thirdly, it projects the impact of the disease outbreak over 20 calendar quarters, rather than for just one year.