USDA to hold NBAF ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 24

“Designed to protect public health and our national food security, this state-of-the-art USDA facility will be located in the heart of the nation and near the farmers and ranchers who help feed our nation,” Moran said.

Vilsack said NBAF will modernize the nation’s process and ability to investigate major challenges to American agriculture.

“Whether it’s African swine fever or foot and mouth disease or some of the other seven critical diseases that could cripple our livestock industry, which obviously would impact and effect our entire economy and our food security,” he said. “In addition, this facility will also be where the vaccine bank is housed,” he said. “As we develop vaccines to try to deal with some of these threats, being able to stockpile appropriately and safely those vaccines (is) incredibly important. Also, a great deal of research is going to be done on the countermeasures, the biosecurity initiatives that are part of protecting our livestock industry.”

Once operational, the $1.25 billion animal and zoonotic disease lab will play a leading role in the nation’s defense against agriculture- and livestock-related pathogens. The federal government officially selected Manhattan as the site for NBAF in January 2009 after starting the process in 2006.

Despite the planned ribbon cutting, this doesn’t mean the facility will be full of activity in a couple of months.

Katie Pawlosky, NBAF communications director, said in an update provided to The Mercury that there’s currently no research happening at the facility, and it will still take a couple of years to transfer the full science mission from the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York to NBAF in Kansas.

“But every day gets us one step closer to our mission — protecting the U.S. against livestock diseases that threaten our food supply, agricultural economy and public health,” she said in the column, which is running on Page A3 in Saturday’s Mercury.