rewrite this title USDA plan to combat bird flu includes almost $1 billion in subsidies to help farmers

The U.S. Agricultural Department has announced a new effort to fight bird flu. NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Leah Douglas, agriculture and energy reporter at Reuters, about the $1 billion plan.

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

Think egg prices at your local store are high now? The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that prices could rise more than 40% this year. Since 2022, farmers have culled more than 166 million chickens to prevent the spread of bird flu. To help ease the shortage, the U.S. is importing 15,000 tons of eggs from Turkey, the country. And on Wednesday, the USDA announced it will spend up to $1 billion to fight the spread of bird flu. This is in addition to 2 billion already spent. Leah Douglas covers agriculture and energy policy for Reuters and has been closely following the outbreak in poultry since 2022. Thank you for being here.

LEAH DOUGLAS: Thank you so much for having me.

RASCOE: Can you give us a sense of just how serious the spread of bird flu is?

DOUGLAS: Well, for poultry farmers, it’s really a significant issue. We’ve actually seen some of the biggest flocks and some significant outbreaks just in the last few months. And so for poultry farmers, it’s a major concern, and also for dairy farmers who are seeing the virus spread in dairy herds as well.

RASCOE: And what is the threat to humans and other animals?

DOUGLAS: So the primary threat to humans right now is in the farmworker population that’s working with the sick animals. So the CDC has reported 70 cases of bird flu among humans in the past year, and the vast majority of those cases were among poultry farmworkers or people working on dairy farms, perhaps milking the cows. Beyond that, the CDC hasn’t yet reported any cases of human-to-human transmission of the virus that would be more concerning about its potential for human spread, but they’re monitoring that very closely.

RASCOE: And one person has died from this?

DOUGLAS: Yes. One person in Louisiana did die from bird flu last year.

RASCOE: Is the bird flu outbreak – is that what’s responsible for high egg prices, or is there more to it?

DOUGLAS: Bird flu is definitely a major factor. I was at a conference where the Department of Agriculture’s chief economist was presenting on this issue. He said that the laying flock – that’s the chickens that lay our eggs – is down about 10% from where the country would want it to be to keep up with demand. So there is a real supply constraint. There have also been questions about whether egg companies are maybe taking advantage of this moment of constraint supply to hike prices higher than they really need to be, and some lawmakers have asked for an inquiry into that as well.

RASCOE: What is the government’s plan to combat bird flu and lower the price of eggs? What will it entail?

DOUGLAS: Well, newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, on Wednesday, announced a plan, and a big chunk of it goes to helping farmers, particularly poultry farmers, increase what’s called biosecurity on their farms. So basically, the efforts they can take to keep wild birds that might be sick off their property to make sure that technicians and workers and other folks coming onto the farm aren’t bringing the virus. So the agency is putting about $500 million towards those efforts of prevention, really.

And then there’s also some effort that the agency is taking to look into vaccination of birds, which is something that was also happening under the previous Biden administration. Looking into vaccines for chickens and cows as well as another sort of preventative approach.

RASCOE: Well, about those vaccines – because scientists have developed a vaccine, but I gather it’s not widely used. Why isn’t it being used?

DOUGLAS: That’s right. The USDA hasn’t yet said that we should be vaccinating either poultry or cows against bird flu, and some of that is because there’s still ongoing research. The agency is still collecting information.

The poultry industry is divided over whether to use vaccines. So the farmers who grow laying hens – they do support vaccines because as we’ve talked about, that’s primarily the chickens that are being affected by the spread of the virus, so they really want that to stop.

The growers who produce chickens for meat have been less impacted, and there’s also potential trade implications from vaccinating those animals. And so there’s a divide in the industry that the agriculture secretary has said she’s still thinking about whether to move forward with a vaccine strategy.

RASCOE: You’ve been covering this story for a long time. What are the experts telling you needs to happen to get this outbreak contained?

DOUGLAS: Experts are really telling me that this situation is unprecedented. That was the word used by the USDA’s chief veterinarian. There’s a lot of support for a vaccine strategy as a way of really trying to prevent this from continuing to spread. Farmers are already implementing biosecurity measures. And I think there is increased attention to, do we need to move to a vaccine, because the efforts that we’ve been doing for the last few years clearly have not controlled the outbreak.

RASCOE: That’s Leah Douglas, agriculture and energy policy reporter at Reuters. Thank you so much for joining us.

DOUGLAS: Thank you for having me.

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