The Economist December 1st 2007 - Online Public Access Catalog

Animal healthFrom stockyards to animal healthNov 29th 2007 | KANSAS CITY, MISSOURIFrom The Economist print editionKansas sets out to be the industry hubTHE ambition, in Kansas City at least, is to make the “Animal Health Corridor” as recognisable toeveryone as, say, Silicon Valley. The hope was born last year, with the publication of a study by RonBrakke, a Dallas-based animal-health consultant. Mr Brakke found that the region houses more than 120companies serving the animal-health and nutrition industries, including four of the ten largestinternational manufacturers of animal-health products. Businesses based in the region account for 27%of the $5 billion national animal-health market and 32% of the $15 billion worldwide market.These numbers have been the basis of a busy branding campaign by Kansas City. The effort began withthe official designation of the corridor and a $300,000 donation from Joerg Ohle, the president of theanimal-health division of Bayer HealthCare, which has its headquarters in a local suburb. The Universityof Kansas will soon begin offering a master's degree in business administration for animal-healthstudents. The Kansas City Life Sciences Institute is offering $50,000 grants to universities that undertakeresearch of interest to local companies. And the state of Missouri has adopted its own veterinary-studentloan programme.The branding campaign has gone quite well, so far. The US Animal Health Association has been enticed toKansas from Virginia. IdentiGEN, a Dublin-based food-safety company, has relocated its Americanheadquarters. And MWI Veterinary Supply, one of the largest animal-health distributors in the country, ismoving its Midwest distribution centre to Kansas. Kansas State University, on the western edge of thecorridor, is among five sites being considered for the National Bio and Agro-Defence Facility. This $450mventure will replace the Plum Island Animal Disease Centre in Greenport, New York, in the research ofdiseases that can be transmitted to humans from animals.Kansas is trading on its “cow town” heritage. The Kansas City Stock Yards opened in the late 1800s andquickly became one of the busiest in the country. Built in 1910, the Kansas City Livestock Exchange wasthe largest building in the world devoted solely to livestock. Nowadays, according to the Brakke report,more than 45% of the country's feedlot-raised cattle and 40% of its hogs are to be found within 350miles of Kansas City.