FEBRUARY 2024 17 St age S uti s f Dry Fertilizer Storage Liquid Fertilizer Storage Chemical & Seed Warehouses Oth S vices Design Services Site Development Full General Contractor Renovations & Remodels 6,440 Metric tons 55,000 sq. ft. 22,415 metric tons 800-367-3424 www.MarcusConstruction.com disciplinary scientific journals, publishing more than 3,500 research papers annually, “Plant diseases, both endemic and recently emerging, are spreading and exacerbated by climate change, transmission with global food trade networks, pathogen spillover, and evolution of new pathogen lineages.” In other words, the risk of new agricultural pandemics emerging is growing larger every day. What can the ag sector do about it? The first line of defence is testing. You can’t treat diseases you can’t identify. Farmers and authorities need to know quickly and reliably what is killing their animals and crops so they can act fast to contain the damage. The most common type of test is a lab-based polymerase chain reaction, better known as PCR, a test we all became very familiar with during the COVID-19 pandemic. For a PCR test, a sample must be collected, protected, and shipped to a lab where genetic material will be heated and cooled for many cycles. The test is very precise, but getting a result can take days or even weeks if the test lab is over capacity, as it will likely be during a serious outbreak. Can farmers afford to wait days or weeks to contain a problem when every precious moment means greater loss of animals, crops, and profit? Of course not. But there are solutions. For example, lateral flow tests (LFTs). More commonly known as antigen tests, LFTs don’t typically require a lab to get a result. For most LFTs, tests can be performed in the field, and results are obvious soon after.
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