Border Security Task Force mulls livestock border fences

Proposals directed at improving livestock fencing along the New Mexico-Mexico border were heard Friday by an ad hoc subcommittee of the Border Security Task Force. The subcommittee met at Mimbres Valley Learning Center, drawing area ranchers and representatives from a cross-section of city, county, state and federal agencies. The chief concern is danger to livestock if an animal or person carrying a disease crosses the border. As they did at a BSTF meeting in March, Keeler and the New Mexico Livestock Board's Joe Delk presented slides showing the variety of fencing. There are newly constructed 19-foot high pedestrian fences, vehicle barriers, Normandy barriers - some with a livestock component further restricting access - and older post-and-rail barriers and barbed-wire fences. "There wasn't a focus," Keeler said of fencing history. "Foot and mouth disease is endemic in South America," said Jeff Witte, of the Office of Agricultural Biosecurity. It has a life of days to weeks on clothing and hay, for example. One infected animal can desolate a whole country, the subcommittee was told, also affecting others whose jobs depend on transporting ag products and grocers. If you eat, you are involved in agriculture. Witte would like to see education on agricultural issues spreading knowledge to a wider population than ranchers and livestock officials...Las Cruces Sun-News