AHDB/BBSRC Initiative: Supporting Agricultural Resilience

11 short term projects to improve the understanding, mangment and control of endemic livestock diseases across Beef and Lamb, Dairy and Pork

UKRI-BBSRC has awarded £500,000 to the AHDB, to fund short collaborative activities between an academic partner and an industrial based partner to improve the understanding, management and control of endemic livestock diseases.

11 Projects have been funded covering Beef and Lamb, Dairy and Pork diseases.

The projects cover:

• Identification of virulence factors in pathogenic ruminant Eimeria species to inform future vaccination targets and strategies
• Application of a lateral flow diagnostic test for Fasciola hepatica that can be used on-farm in sheep and cattle
• Optimising health and productivity outcomes of dairy bred calves: use of integrated data and alternative management
• Predicting risk of vertical spreading and horizontal shedding of MAP using a Bayesian algorithm that accelerates detection of Johne’s Disease (JD) in dairy cattle.
• Towards an Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven diagnosis of mastitis on dairy farms
• Using metabolomics to detect lameness on commercial dairy farms; a validation study
• Utilising foot trimmers’ records to inform genetic evaluations of resistance to lameness causing foot lesions in dairy cattle.
•  Farmer-centric networks to control endemic pig diseases in the UK: using pleurisy as a case study
• Towards better vaccines for Enzootic pneumonia in pigs
• Use of next generation sequencing techniques to detect bacterial and viral infections in post-weaning diarrhoeic pigs and application of novel interventions for treating enteric disease.
•  Development of a bio-surveillance tool to demonstrate and characterize known and unknown circulating coronaviruses in the UK pig herd