APHIS

Michael Watson, the No. 2 official at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service since 2018, will be the agency’s new administrator, announced the USDA on Wednesday. He will succeed Kevin Shea, who will become a senior adviser to Xochitl Torres Small, USDA deputy secretary.

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said Wednesday that it had approved the sale of a genetically engineered tomato altered to change its color and enhance its nutritional quality. The purple tomato was developed to have high levels of anthocyanins, which are linked with health benefits.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack approved the second infusion of additional funding to the agency fighting outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza from the Atlantic to the Rockies, said the USDA on Wednesday.

Poultry farmers should review their biosecurity safeguards for their flocks against avian influenza following the discovery of the highly pathogenic Eurasian H5 variant in a wild duck in South Carolina, said the USDA.

Just one day after officials reported bird flu on a turkey farm in Missouri’s Jasper County, they confirmed another outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza on a poultry farm in neighboring Lawrence County. The discovery increased the toll of “high path” bird flu among U.S. domestic flocks since Feb. 8 to 3.04 million birds, almost all of them chickens or turkeys.

Citrus canker, a bacterial disease that causes lesions on leaves, stems, and fruit, was discovered at a South Carolina nursery that sells plants over the internet, said the Agriculture Department on Wednesday. The USDA said it was tracking sales to customers in 11 states as part of efforts to contain the disease.

With new outbreaks in Iowa and Missouri, nearly 2.8 million birds—almost entirely chickens and turkeys—have died in one month due to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the Agriculture Department said on Monday. The viral disease has been identified in 23 poultry farms and backyard flocks in a dozen states since Feb. 8.

Avian influenza was identified at a sixth turkey farm in southern Indiana, and state officials said on Tuesday the 16,500 birds on the farm would be killed while they wait for confirmation of the viral disease. Meanwhile, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said 1.6 million turkeys, chickens and other fowl have died as part of this year's outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).

In a step to protect U.S. swine and pork exports, the USDA said on Thursday that it will establish a "foreign animal disease protection zone" in two Caribbean territories, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. African swine fever was confirmed a month ago in the Dominican Republic.

Three decades into the agricultural biotechnology era, the USDA said on Thursday that it will exempt genetically engineered plants from pre-market reviews if they are unlikely to pose an environmental risk. Opponents of the move said it means "a majority of genetically engineered and gene-edited plants will now escape any oversight" by the USDA.

The USDA confirmed a case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in a turkey flock in South Carolina and said on Thursday that all of the birds had been killed to prevent spread of the disease. It was the first case of "high path" bird flu in a commercial poultry plant in the United States since 2017.

For the first time since 1929, a version of the virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease, a highly infectious livestock disease, will be allowed on the U.S. mainland, said the USDA on Thursday.