Animal health organizations: roles to mitigate the impact of ecologic change on animal health in the tropics

Abstract

Production of livestock across North and South America is extensive. The opportunities for production, commerce, and thriving economies related to animal agriculture are balanced against the devastating threats of disease. Commitment by livestock and poultry producers in exporting countries to production methods, herd health management, and biosecurity in their operations must be coupled with an animal health and marketing infrastructure that allows the industries to thrive and offers assurances to trading partners that their livestock industries will not be jeopardized. National and international animal health organizations play a key role in providing this infrastructure to the industries that they serve. The incentive for the successful World agricultural production economies to provide direction and support for improving animal health and conveying principles for competitive and safe production to lesser developed nations is the assurance that the expanding economies of these nations offer an eager and hungry market for the products of the other industries of an export-dependent economy. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was established after the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The WTO provides the permanent international multilateral institutional framework for implementing dispute resolution agreements and the agreement on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures. The SPS agreements allow for the protection of animal and plant health.