By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig says he’s encouraged by the announcement of a plan by the U.S. Ag Secretary to address Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.
Naig tells Radio Iowa it is a five-pronged plan. “To say, what more can we do? And how can we try to get ahead of this? Of course, that’s important for producers, but also for consumers,” he says. “Obviously, we see the price of eggs and after three years of high path affecting production, now’s the time to look at some different strategies.”
He says the plan has some new things and some that have been already in use. “Some additional focus on biosecurity, some more support for farmers, more compensation for some of their losses, and also now a bringing a focus to potentially bring vaccine into the picture,” Naig says. Naig says the biosecurity would help keep the disease from getting into facilities. “U.S.D.A. has had a pilot that was developed to allow for some biosecurity audits on farms. It was being piloted, and some folks in Iowa were making use of that. And I think what you saw was them saying, the pilot has worked, let’s make that nationwide, and so to provide biosecurity audits to commercial poultry producers,” he says. “And then actually, U.S.D.A. has indicated they will pay some cost share on improvements to facilities that may, in fact, help to improve that biosecurity.”
Naig says the use of vaccines has some issues that would have to be worked through. “Different sectors of the industry view it differently, but certainly for egg producers, vaccine makes all kinds of sense. There’s still research and development that’s needed. There’s strategies that need to be developed, trade negotiations that need to occur. So it’s not a silver bullet, and it’s not an easy answer,” Naig says.
Naig says the bird flu has taken a large toll on Iowa poultry producers. “There is some compensation paid to producers, but it’s nothing like the losses that they’re experiencing. And so that is challenging. Of course then consumers are seeing the impact as well in terms of reduced availability while demand is high. And so that’s crunching as consumers as well,” he says.
He says the impact producers goes well beyond the monetary impact. “It’s quite a stressful event to go through. It’s emotionally draining. It’s very challenging. These folks, they get up every day and care for animals, to have to see them sick and disposed of is very troubling. So our hearts go out to them,” Naig says. Naig says Ag Secretary Brook Rollins has pledged $500 million to support on-farm biosecurity assessments and cost-share funding, which will help farmers make necessary infrastructure improvements. The plan also commits $400 million to update indemnity tables to ensure farmers are receiving fair market rates for birds that have to be destroyed.