Kansas Department of Agriculture outlines annual foreign animal disease exercise focused on foot‑and‑mouth disease

Dr. Justin Smith, a Kansas Department of Agriculture official, told a legislative committee that the department's year‑end foreign animal disease (FAD) exercise focuses on response to foot‑and‑mouth disease (FMD), the most contagious livestock disease.

The exercise, called Watchtower, is an annual three‑day simulation now in its 12th year. "We had over 200 participants that played with us in this exercise," Smith said, describing participation from state agencies, law enforcement, university partners, processors and producers. He said the exercise aims to test surveillance, tracing, disposal and vaccination planning and to identify operational and policy gaps.

The exercise's purpose, Smith said, is to validate response plans and improve collaboration among stakeholders. "It improves our collaboration with our stakeholders," he said. He described using real producers and their operational data in scenarios so planners can test responses against actual movement and business records rather than hypothetical figures.

Smith summarized recent focus areas. In 2021 the exercise emphasized vaccination planning; in 2022 it revisited fundamentals after turnover in incident management teams; 2023 tested response plans and international assurance; and 2024, "Watchtower 2024," concentrated on surveillance and the ability to carry out intensive sampling in a control zone. He said the 2025 exercise will examine vaccine distribution and accountability.

Smith described challenges the exercises exposed. Kansas and federal guidance (the USDA FMD "red book," as he called it) require intensive surveillance around positive premises, but Smith said the state found the surveillance expectations difficult to meet. "We opened up USDA's eyes a little bit," he said, reporting that the volume of samples and personnel needed strained current capacity and led USDA committees to reconsider what is achievable for surveillance plans.

On workforce and operational capacity, Smith said the state lacks sufficient veterinarians and trained personnel to maintain uninterrupted operations in a major FMD response. "Any kind of an FAD response or FMD response is gonna be a 24 hour deal," he said, adding that maintaining a cohort of "clean" veterinarians (persons not exposed to positive premises) is hard when staff numbers are small.

The exercises also tested logistics for very large premises. Smith cited scenarios with multi‑thousand‑head dairies, including a 25,000‑head dairy used in the exercise, and raised questions about timely euthanasia and carcass disposal for facilities of that scale. He said planners discussed "manage in place" options but concluded they had more questions than answers about how to proceed and how to maintain trade assurance with trading partners.

Smith addressed vaccine availability and timing. He said the United States maintains vaccine concentrate in national stockpiles but federal rules prevent reconstitution and domestic use until the disease is present in the country. "There's a period of time in there, 10 to 14 days that we don't have vaccine," he said, describing a gap between recognizing an outbreak and having an immediately deployable vaccine.

On tracing and movement controls, Smith said the state used certificate of veterinary inspection (CVI) records to trace animals from a simulated positive in another state and looked back 14 days to identify incoming movements. He noted limits in the data set: animals moving through packing facilities or livestock markets are not always required to have a CVI, and not all animals carry official ID, which complicates traceback.

Smith outlined interagency and interstate participation: Kansas Highway Patrol, Kansas Department of Transportation, Kansas Department of Emergency Management, Kansas Wildlife and Parks, university partners (Kansas State, Iowa State), Canadian industry representatives and other states have taken part. He said the exercises include simulated media engagement and explicit labeling of materials and calls as "exercise" to prevent public confusion.

Funding for the exercise was discussed. Smith said the department received about $250,000 last year to support the program; historically the department used Homeland Security grant funds and now navigates a mix of funding sources, including USDA cooperative agreements (which can reimburse indemnity and response costs) and FEMA funding rules, each of which has different eligibility and accounting requirements.

Representatives on the committee asked follow‑ups. Representative Long asked why vaccine concentrate is held off‑site; Smith replied the concentrate is in federal vaccine banks (previously on Plum Island, to be moved to Manhattan), but federal law precludes reconstitution and domestic stockpiling of active vaccine until an outbreak is declared. Representative Curtis asked whether the department runs exercises for diseases other than FMD; Smith said the department does exercise other threats (for example African swine fever) but concentrates resources on FMD for the December exercise.

Smith closed by inviting legislators to observe the exercise and by reiterating that the simulations produce policy and operational changes. "We wanna be the most prepared state in the nation regarding foreign animal disease," he said. "If not the most, we're definitely in the top 10."