MANHATTAN — Livestock owners face numerous challenges, including natural disasters like flooding and wildfire and the threat of foreign animal diseases like African Swine Fever and food-and-mouth disease, which have impacted other countries. The Kansas Department of Agriculture works to help Kansas livestock owners, from large feedyards to families with show animals, in preparing for the impact any of these disasters could have on their lives. This spring, KDA will host eight regional workshops to assist Kansans throughout the livestock industry with emergency preparedness. 

The workshops will help livestock owners understand which foreign animal diseases are a possible threat to their animals and how an outbreak could impact them as well as the industry as a whole. Attendees will learn what precautions they can take to protect their herds, and how to respond if they do suffer losses due to natural disaster or disease. The workshops are geared toward all livestock owners, regardless of species or size of their herd.  

The Emergency Livestock Management Workshops will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the following dates in the following cities: 

Tuesday, April 30 — Great Bend: Great Bend Convention Center

Wednesday, May 1 — Montezuma: Hy-Plains Feedyard

Monday, May 6 — Olathe: Johnson County Research and Extension

Tuesday, May 7 — Mankato: Mankato Livestock Inc.

Wednesday, May 8 — Goodland: Emergency Management Training Facility

Monday, May 13 — El Dorado: Butler County 4-H Building

Thursday, May 16 — Iola: Allen County Courthouse

Monday, May 20 — Manhattan: Kansas Department of Agriculture

All of the workshops are free, and registration is now open for all of the locations at www.agriculture.ks.gov/EmergencyManagement. Registration includes lunch; however, lunch will only be guaranteed to those participants who pre-register. Space is limited to 50 participants. For more information about the Emergency Livestock Management workshops, contact Kelly Oliver, KDA’s assistant emergency management coordinator, at 785-564-6608 or Kelly.Oliver@ks.gov.