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agriculture

U.S. plans changes to bird-flu response after criticism

The U.S. Agriculture Department wants to improve its handling of the nation's worst-ever outbreak of bird flu in poultry after coming under criticism for a slow and confusing response. The USDA is aiming to assign one person to communicate with each infected farm during the entire time the facility is affected by the deadly virus, John Clifford, the chief U.S. veterinary officer, said at a U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on Tuesday. Currently, a USDA representative deals with an infected farm for a period of about three to four weeks as part of a rotation, Clifford told lawmakers.

California turkey farm quarantined after bird flu detected

By Theopolis Waters CHICAGO (Reuters) – A California turkey farm has been quarantined after confirmation of the first case of an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza strain in the Pacific Northwest and in a commercial flock, the U.S. government said. The news on Saturday came just weeks after China banned U.S. poultry after an outbreak of another strain of bird flu in the Pacific Northwest. In the latest outbreak, Foster Farms said in a statement that it had informed the U.S. Department of Agriculture after detecting the H5N8 strain on a single turkey ranch in Stanislaus County following routine testing. State and government labs confirmed the findings from samples submitted by Foster Farms, which had experienced a spike in bird deaths, according to the USDA.