Vilsack: Poultry, turkey disaster program needed
July 29, 2015 |06:58 PM
The United States needs a disaster program for the poultry and turkey industries, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the Avian Influenza Outbreak Conference in Des Moines on Tuesday.
“I would hope that one of the long-term lessons from all of this is that we can convince our friends in Congress to understand that it isn’t just about dollars and cents, as was the case in this last farm bill,” Vilsack said.
“The reason why a disaster program wasn’t included was because it didn’t pan out in terms of budget,” he said.
“We really do need to take a look at a disaster program. Why? Because at the end of the day, it’s going to be ultimately less expensive.
“Whether it’s a risk management insurance-type program or a disaster program or a combination, it really will reinforce the biosecurity aspects of this. It will reinforce the need for us to be focused on trying to mitigate the consequences and it will make sure that everyone understands what the rules are in advance. It will just become easier and more efficient to operate.”
Bills are being discussed and developed tp create a program similar to the one the livestock industry has.
“You know in the last year or so since the 2014 farm bill was signed, USDA has made over 600,000 payments to livestock producers as a result of a variety of disasters, from drought to floods to snow storms that were unanticipated and unexpected.,” Vilsack said.
“A very simple process, everybody understands what it is. You lose livestock, you get paid. You lose forage, you get paid. It’s predictable, it’s understandable. It allows those producers to go to their bankers and say relax, I know it's been a tough time but we're going to get help. Unfortunately producers in this world don’t necessarily have that and they should.”
Vilsack noted that USDA has undertaken the cleanup on its own.
“It’s not something that Congress has directed us to do, it is something that we have decided to do because we know it’s the right thing to do, to work with producers during a very difficult time,” he said.
But with an expenditure of $700 million in indemnification payments to producers as well as the cost of disinfection and cleanup, Vilsack said, it had to be done “through a process” and that records had to be kept.
There have been no new outbreaks since June, but Vilsack said USDA is preparing for the worst-case scenario this fall when the weather is colder and the disease is more likely to spread.
One of USDA’s concerns, Vilsack said, is “the fact that we are dealing with different operations in different states, in terms of not geographic states but in different conditions.”
“Some of these facilities have allowed a substantial amount of manure to accumulate over a number of years and in some cases as long as a decade. That creates a larger cleanup responsibility so we are trying to figure out how to balance, appropriately, the need for us to sensitive and helpful but at the same time understand and appreciate that there are producers at different place in terms of the cleanup risk and costs. We need to factor that into evaluations.”
USDA released a copy of his speech, which contains details about USDA’s response and how it is handling the vaccine issue.
