When Sick Cows Can't Be Culled | Hacker News Reader

When Sick Cows Can't Be Culled

undark.org

27 pointsbreathnow30 comments

One of the web projects I worked on some years ago was visualisation of a research project into compensation levels for farmers who have had herds culled from Brucellosis.

It’s an interesting economic question - because farmers around the world feel the economic impact of losing their herd in entirely different ways. When you get the compensation value wrong though you make the outbreak worse - because farmers will shop around an infected animal to enable others to claim.

Internally the project was always known as the ‘cowcullator’...

That is an unbelievable pun. I really try to avoid these sorts of comments, but this is extraordinary. For the greater good, even.

From the article it appears that some of the reluctance to vaccinate arises from the potential for loss of income due to temporarily decreased milk production. This lasts for a period of weeks. The other sticking point may be the potential for income loss due to vaccine-caused late-term abortions.

Perhaps it would be useful for the Indian government to educate the farmers about the benefits of vaccination via a mobile phone ad-based campaign. Emphasize that vaccination only needs to be done once for each animal and they are protected for life.

In addition, to manage the reluctance of individual farmers to vaccinate based on potential income loss, offer a temporary financial subsidy based on the local price of milk that would be sold. This might require some knowledge about how milk production is typically affected so that adequate payment schedules can be calculated based on strong data about production declines and their usual durations.

Since the vaccine can cause late-term abortions which also affect the financial viability of the farmer's operations a subsidy can be created to compensate for that loss and could take the form of a one-time payment of the projected value of a calf that would be made to a farmer who can demonstrate a loss post-vaccination. This would encourage farmers to maintain a relationship with local veterinarians at the same time since the veterinarian would verify the loss. As a result, herd health in the country could improve significantly in a few years.

All of this should end up being a temporary program since you will eventually run out of cattle to subsidize when you reach the point where all calves are vaccinated at birth. Preventing this from birth eliminates the need for the milk subsidy and for the abortion subsidy so if you can get strong buy-in from the cattle owners it may be possible to eliminate this problem quickly.

Vaccination efforts should focus first on heifers since they are the ones suffering the abortions and the decrease in milk production. The secondary focus should be on new-born calves of both sexes. The tertiary focus should be on bulls.

By focusing on heifers up front, your program costs should scale back to regular vaccination administration and animal tracking to insure that most cattle are protected.

I own no cattle myself, I am a geophysicist, but I grew up in rural Texas and have worked a lot of cows, docked and castrated sheep, raised chickens for eggs, and some family members currently raise cattle. I don't see the inability to cull as a huge hurdle since this looks like a solvable problem. Obviously if you could just cull the sick cattle from the herd then the problem is eliminated more quickly but in the absence of that option go with the tools you have available. It may take longer but with appropriate buy-in from the cattle raisers after a comprehensive education campaign you can end this in a few years. Their target date is 2025 and that looks reasonable. Maybe they are already doing this. The article doesn't say with certainty but it is obvious they are committing significant money to the effort. hopefully they can direct it to the right part of the problem.

>All of this should end up being a temporary program since you will eventually run out of cattle to subsidize when you reach the point where all calves are vaccinated at birth. Preventing this from birth eliminates the need for the milk subsidy and for the abortion subsidy so if you can get strong buy-in from the cattle owners it may be possible to eliminate this problem quickly.

I'm not sure about a program being temporary.

The article describes even efforts in the west as an ongoing effort. They're more successful... but they're still actively having to address the problem, and thus haven't simply solved it via a big effort.

Not to say the west couldn't be doing better / missing something, but it seems like this is an issue that isn't so much something you can swoop in and solve and just vaccinate after that.

Any program only lasts as long as funding for it exists. It seems easy enough to design the program so that it has a defined start and end goal and target end date.

The Yellowstone herd in the US is a special case. According to USDA numbers released this month, the US is free of cattle and swine brucellosis in all 50 states.

The program has been successful in eradication with the exception of an occasional case in the Yellowstone area. Work is in progress to ensure containment of cases which mainly seem to affect the elk in the park but also affect bison.

[USGS Brucellosis](https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/brucellosis?qt-s...)

Since the program to eradicate began in 1954, brucellosis in domestic cattle and swine has been eradicated in all 50 states as noted by the USDA. Spending has ramped down accordingly to the point where less than $1 million dollars was needed in 2010.

[USDA Brucellosis](https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/sa_an...)

There are active monitoring efforts in place since cattle are routinely trucked across country to pasture on better grass and since cattle do come across the border from Mexico, which still has a problem with control in some areas.

With that in mind, it took the years from 1954 to 2010 for it to be officially eliminated.

In India changes aren't easy, existing power nexuses have built their power over centuries and now they wield so much power over common people's belief and thoughts that any change seems against the existing value and belief system.

Luckily first time in history India has now a leader who isn't scared of breaking existing power structures and replacing them with inclusive ones, ones which are more democratic and progressive

Uniting people behind a common agenda in a nation as large and populous as India will be a challenge. That is where education is essential so that people who may feel that they have little in common with their countrymen on the other side of the country can be made aware of the benefits of buying in to the vaccination efforts.

I know India is large and there are many social barriers to some things that are difficult to navigate, even perilous for the leaders who attempt it. I hope that as India grows and exerts greater influence globally it will be because they saw the benefit of banding together and had the leadership with the courage and the vision to lay it out for the people and try to make it happen.

Paying for aborted calfs is an extremely bad idea. The number of aborted calfs will skyrocket.

If the vaccine is a net positive, those who vaccinate will win. There is no need to subsidize winners. If the vaccine is not a net positive, why would you encourage it?

I considered that, surprisingly enough since I had not had my first cup of coffee when I typed all that verbage.

I decided that the subsidies are equivalent to greasing the wheels in that they provides an incentive for people to choose the path that you wish them to choose in absence of the subsidy. If you have a goal of eliminating brucellosis from your native herds and you want it to happen in as short a time period as possible then you design a program that rewards people for taking quick action.

The program controls can also do useful things like set a time limit on the availability of the subsidy so that people can be helped to understand that if they hesitate to act they will lose out on the benefit. It should also have controls in place to identify and sanction bad actors so that anyone in a position to falsify data will know in advance that damaging sanctions exist and that enforcement will be a program priority. Veterinarians would need to be on board with defrauding the system since they have to sign off on the relevance of the subsidy on a case by case basis. It seems unlikely that someone who has spend such a large part of their life earning that position, a position that will see them able to earn a good living for themselves and their families, would risk losing all of it by falsifying data.

It is clear that India has decided that vaccination is a net positive and that the end result is worth the cost since society will win. A subsidy to help those who stand to lose something, even temporarily like the milk output reduction, seems like a great trade.

Are you familiar enough with daily life throughout India to know how easy it is to become a vet or to know how lucrative or desirable it is to be a vet? Or to know if it is practical for vets to respond to every failed birthing and certify them? Presumably you have to certify that the mother was vaccinated properly.

Do you know how many vets would be involved? How big of an enforcement staff will you be hiring for this? How will you make sure they can't be bought?

This scheme would be dominated by corruption from start to finish.

Why not propose to pay vets for every vac-tag they record? Enforcement is a lot easier. Payment distribution is a lot easier. Incentive to vaccinate is higher. No incentive to abort calves. Still invites corruption.

Edit: In other words, pay for the behavior you want to encourage. Do you want to vaccinate, or do you want to abort calves?

Edit: I'm American. I'm not great at English.

It would seem the solution here is to design a better vaccine.

It would seem that the solution is to adopt Western practices if Indians truly desire a better quality of life, instead of sticking to archaic superstitions.

It discusses that in the article. 80% Of Indians are Hindus and believe cows are sacred. Suggesting they abandon their cultural beliefs just to maximize yields is ignorant of their way of life. Not everyone needs to live or believe like us.

This is not the 1700s, where cows could wander through village streets and live an organic life.

Cows in Indian cities today live in slums, surrounded by pollution and disease. They feed on roadside garbage, and their stomachs become compacted with plastic bags.

This is the second top result from Google detailing more of the suffering: https://sharan-india.org/cattle-in-india/

Proper slaughter would improve the conditions of cattle.

For real. When I hear "cows are like a member of the family" I think "oh, like cats and dogs are members of my family."

And if everyone around me had to adjust to a culture where dogs were treated like the dairy and veal and cattle industry? There would be an outcry.

Not the same. You care for your dog even when they are old and sick. Cows in India are only cared until they give milk. Once that is over, they are left out in the streets to rot.

You care for your animal when you can "afford". Whether it be dog or cow. When it gets beyond your means, you hear about abandoned pets the same way you hear about abandoned cows.

>just to maximize yields

It's not as if everyone is just doing fine and some rando person demanded they 'maximize yields' the problems of these cows being sick impacts the folks who own these cows too...

>80% Of Indians are Hindus and believe cows are sacred

Even that has some internal inconsistency. The cows are too sacred to kill, but not sacred enough to vaccinate against a preventable disease? The article says that vaccination might drop milk output by 20%, so it seems like to them cows are less sacred than the almighty dollar (or rupee).

But believing something is sacred then milking it? If Indians truly believe cow as a family, how does it make sense to milk a family member?

You just answered your own question: Babies routinely drink their mother's breast milk, but almost never kill them.

But does baby milk mother without her consent? How can you milk cow without its consent how does cow consent to it. Seems not a fair comparison.

Cows that need to be milked welcome milking, otherwise their utters get sore and tender. Just like humans.

I was thinking isolation but:

>Currently, farmers may take their sick cows to shelters called gaushalas, run by nongovernmental organizations, but they are “already full to capacity,”

Really seems like the vaccination effort three due to logistics and just the nature of cows in India is doomed to fail :(

Kinda a bummer as culling seems like the most effective / accessible answer for farmers without a lot of resources rather than a lot of process, vaccinations, etc...

So, I'm left scratching my head.

Wouldn't it be better and more consistent to adopt veganism to avoid the climate change, pandemic, resource intensity, and animal cruelty risks rather than "make internal combustion engines more efficient"? There are many other livelihoods.

Telling the most poor people that are already threatened by malnutrition to give up their cow isn't a very good idea.

Never said that. Then trade with them or help them.

The most poor people can not afford meat. Or if they can, access to meat is not required to treat malnutrition. Meat is also unhygienic without refrigeration, and the source of parasites in many hotter climates.

Edit: sorry I see now you didn’t mean for eating. But for dairy. Yes, access to a cow for dairy is definitely a good thing. :-)

I dont see how any of those things would be helped by veganism, except for animal cruelty. That is if you don't count pest animals, and humans. I would 100% get behind outlawing factory farming of animals, and maybe that would lead to more vegans if prices rise, but not the opposite.

I know the argument for vegans helping climate change, but I'm pretty sure it only holds up if you eat local plants that are grown and processed in a way that is safe for the environment. That is to say most common vegan diets are worse for the environment. This is because the food is traveling farther, weighs more per calorie, uses more pesticides, and in many cases more water and land. With shipping of the food being the worst part of the pipeline for any diet. So making engines more efficient, or finding a better mode of shipment, is a much better use of resources regarding climate change.

Eating meat is only more efficient if you forget to calculate in the food your meat needs to eat and drink. If you include those there's wildly more water and transport involved in meat production than in plant production.

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