Egg Pricing for the Boston Egg Market Structure

Contents: Prices Useful in Policy Decisions (Effect of Feed and Egg Mobility on Boston Egg Prices – Price Bases for Boston Brown and New York White Eggs) --- Base Price Influence on Farm Egg Prices (Low Point for Base Prices For Brown Eggs – Effect of Dumping Egg Supplies) --- Eggs from Many States to Boston (Highest Price Spreads in Northeast – Shifting Interregional Competition) --- The Boston Market (Size of Consumer Market – Channels Through Which Eggs Move to Consumers -- Changing Marketing Channels and Structure) --- Implications to Farmer Cooperatives in the Northeast (Meeting Competition – Cooperative Sales Can Be Personalized – Egg Pricing) --- Recommendations --- Appendix Tables

Serological profile of foot-and-mouth disease in wildlife populations of West and Central Africa with special reference to Syncerus caffer subspecies

The role which West and Central African wildlife populations might play in the transmission dynamics of FMD is not known nor have studies been performed in order to assess the distribution and prevalence of FMD in wild animal species inhabiting those specific regions of Africa. This study reports the FMD serological profile extracted from samples (n = 696) collected from wildlife of West and Central Africa between 1999 and 2003. An overall prevalence of FMDV NSP reactive sera of 31.0% (216/696) was estimated, where a significant difference in seropositivity (p = 0.000) was reported for buffalo (64.8%) as opposed to other wild animal species tested (17.8%). Different levels of exposure to the FMDV resulted for each of the buffalo subspecies sampled (p = 0.031): 68.4%, 50.0% and 0% for Nile Buffalo, West African Buffalo and African Forest Buffalo, respectively. The characterisation of the FMDV serotypes tested for buffalo found presence of antibodies against all the six FMDV serotypes tested, although high estimates for type O and SAT 3 were reported for Central Africa. Different patterns of reaction to the six FMDV serotypes tested were recorded, from sera only positive for a single serotype to multiple reactivities. The results confirmed that FMDV circulates in wild ruminants populating both West and Central Africa rangelands and in particular in buffalo, also suggesting that multiple FMDV serotypes might be involved with type O, SAT 2 and SAT 1 being dominant. Differences in serotype and spill-over risk between wildlife and livestock likely reflect regional geography, historical circulation and differing trade and livestock systems

Peste des Petits Ruminants at the Wildlife–Livestock Interface in the Northern Albertine Rift and Nile Basin, East Africa

In the recent past, peste des petits ruminants (PPR) emerged in East Africa causing outbreaks in small livestock across different countries, with evidences of spillover to wildlife. In order to understand better PPR at the wildlife–livestock interface, we investigated patterns of peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) exposure, disease outbreaks, and viral sequences in the northern Albertine Rift. PPRV antibodies indicated a widespread exposure in apparently healthy wildlife from South Sudan (2013) and Uganda (2015, 2017). African buffaloes and Uganda kobs <1-year-old from Queen Elizabeth National Park (2015) had antibodies against PPRV N-antigen and local serosurvey captured a subsequent spread of PPRV in livestock. Outbreaks with PPR-like syndrome in sheep and goats were recorded around the Greater Virunga Landscape in Kasese (2016), Kisoro and Kabale (2017) from western Uganda, and in North Kivu (2017) from eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This landscape would not be considered typical for PPR persistence as it is a mixed forest–savannah ecosystem with mostly sedentary livestock. PPRV sequences from DRC (2017) were identical to strains from Burundi (2018) and confirmed a transboundary spread of PPRV. Our results indicate an epidemiological linkage between epizootic cycles in livestock and exposure in wildlife, denoting the importance of PPR surveillance on wild artiodactyls for both conservation and eradication programs

Molecular Foundations of Reproductive Lethality in Arabidopsis thaliana

The SeedGenes database (www.seedgenes.org) contains information on more than 400 genes required for embryo development in Arabidopsis. Many of these EMBRYO-DEFECTIVE (EMB) genes encode proteins with an essential function required throughout the life cycle. This raises a fundamental question. Why does elimination of an essential gene in Arabidopsis often result in embryo lethality rather than gametophyte lethality? In other words, how do mutant (emb) gametophytes survive and participate in fertilization when an essential cellular function is disrupted? Furthermore, why do some mutant embryos proceed further in development than others? To address these questions, we first established a curated dataset of genes required for gametophyte development in Arabidopsis based on information extracted from the literature. This provided a basis for comparison with EMB genes obtained from the SeedGenes dataset. We also identified genes that exhibited both embryo and gametophyte defects when disrupted by a loss-of-function mutation. We then evaluated the relationship between mutant phenotype, gene redundancy, mutant allele strength, gene expression pattern, protein function, and intracellular protein localization to determine what factors influence the phenotypes of lethal mutants in Arabidopsis. After removing cases where continued development potentially resulted from gene redundancy or residual function of a weak mutant allele, we identified numerous examples of viable mutant (emb) gametophytes that required further explanation. We propose that the presence of gene products derived from transcription in diploid (heterozygous) sporocytes often enables mutant gametophytes to survive the loss of an essential gene in Arabidopsis. Whether gene disruption results in embryo or gametophyte lethality therefore depends in part on the ability of residual, parental gene products to support gametophyte development. We also highlight here 70 preglobular embryo mutants with a zygotic pattern of inheritance, which provide valuable insights into the maternal-to-zygotic transition in Arabidopsis and the timing of paternal gene activation during embryo development

Marketing potatoes for consumer approval

Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 285, 195

Caractéristiques de souches de virus de la rage et de virus apparentés à la rage, isolées en Europe, Afrique et Asie

Dans le cadre d'une étude collaborative avec l'Institut Wistar, et selon les recommandations d'un groupe de consultants de l'OMS. (WHO.Rab. Res./82-15) nous avons analysé les caractéristiques antigéniques de plus de 200 souches de virus de rage reçues de plusieurs pays d'Afrique et d'Asie, en utilisant la technique des anticorps fluorescents avec une batterie de 20 anticorps monoclonaux spécifiques de déterminants de la nucléocapside des virus de la rage et apparentés à la rage (fournis par T.J. Wiktor). Nous avons aussi déterminé le profil antigénique de plusieurs souches isolées de cas humains d'échec de traitement antirabique (vaccination post-exposition) et de cas animaux (chiens) d'échec de vaccination préventive. De plus, nous avons déterminé l'origine africaine ou asiatique du virus dans plusieurs cas "importés" de rage humaine ou animale. Grâce à l'utilisation complémentaire d'anticorps monoclonaux antiglycoprotéine nous avons identifié au virus Flury LEP une souche isolée d'un cas de rage vaccinale chez un chat. Une souche de virus Mokola isolée d'un rongeur en République Centrafricaine a été étudiée et comparée aux souches de Mokola du Nigéria et du Cameroun. Des anticorps monoclonaux ont été préparés contre cette souche de virus Mokol

Peste des petits ruminants has been widely present in southern India since, if not before, the late 1980s

Because previous authorities had suggested that small ruminants were playing a part in the dissemination of rinderpest, and a rinderpest-eradication campaign was about to begin, it was necessary to make precise virus identifications from a number of small-ruminant "rinderpest" outbreaks. When this was done using a database created from passive disease reports, we found that epidemics-reportedly due to rinderpest-were in fact due to peste des petits ruminants (PPRs). Although such cases had been common in India for a number of years, earlier clinical and laboratory reports no longer should be regarded as definitive. PPR outbreaks have been frequent in recent years. Further, we suggest that PPR is not a recent invader of India. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved