Source: Lancaster Farming
Pennsylvania’s poultry industry will receive $25 million in state funding to recover from avian influenza, and Ag Secretary Russell Redding can’t wait to get the aid flowing.
“We feel some sense of urgency now to get this done,” Redding said Wednesday.
The state budget, approved July 8, gives the Ag Department broad latitude to tailor the relief program to the industry’s needs.
Staff are working on that process, which is complicated by the variety of poultry production systems, and the points in the flock cycle when farms were disrupted, Redding said.
Totaling 4.2 million birds, the 17 Pennsylvania farms infected this spring housed layers, broilers and ducks, and included production, pullet and breeder flocks.
USDA indemnifies farms that are infected with avian influenza and must depopulate.
But federal funding is not available to farms that missed flock placements because they were in a control area surrounding an infected farm.
And support businesses such as feed mills may have taken financial losses because of their customers’ difficulties.
State recovery funding won’t make these businesses whole, but it should bridge them as the situation gets back to normal, Redding said.
Redding had hoped to get the funding passed during the last fiscal year, which ended in June.
That plan fell through, so he now aims to set up the aid program in the next few weeks.
This spring’s outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain was Pennsylvania’s first since the 1980s.
Redding said he hopes it will be the last, but USDA and state veterinarians have warned that two more wild bird migrations — this fall’s and next spring’s — could pass before the current strain burns out.
As a result, Redding doesn’t want to spend all of the recovery money immediately.
“We’re hopeful that that $25 million will cover both the initial losses that we’ve experienced this round and put us in a position with some resources for the next,” Redding said.
Wild birds are the natural reservoir of avian influenza, which can be introduced to poultry houses through wildlife incursions or dirty footwear and equipment.
In addition to the recovery fund, the new budget boosts Pennsylvania’s animal disease preparedness by upping veterinary lab funding.
And Redding said some of the 11% increase for the Ag Department’s general operations is for animal health staffing, which the agency expanded during the outbreak.
Still, the budget does not provide a long-term solution for the Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement, which is dependent on license and kennel fees that have been static for decades.
Sen. Elder Vogel, chairman of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee, has introduced a plan to raise the fees and give the Ag Department the ability to make future increases.
Redding said the bureau can get by for the moment with available general appropriations money, but he still wants to revisit a long-term fix with lawmakers in the fall.
Another, less predictable challenge for future ag funding could be brewing.
In the past two years, some Republican lawmakers have threatened to withhold state funding from the University of Pennsylvania’s vet school and the University of Pittsburgh over social issues unrelated to agriculture.
If such wangling continues in future budget cycles, it might eventually threaten Penn State’s research and Extension funding. Like Pitt, Penn State is classified as a state-related university.
Redding said universities that receive public funds do face expectations for how they operate, but Penn Vet and Penn State both provide important services to the state.
“I am hopeful that just as we’ve witnessed, (lawmakers) can have the debate, but at the end of the day, the funding comes through and cooler heads prevail to make sure that we don’t jeopardize the institutions we’re trying to support,” Redding said.
Those will largely be battles for Redding’s successor, as Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration will end in January.
It’s been a long but positive ride, Redding said.
At the beginning of Wolf’s eight years in office, Pennsylvania was strapped for cash, and budget season was an exercise in trying to get by with less of everything.
Wolf’s first budget, in 2015, was so mired in controversy that it took until April 2016 to complete.
Since then, an improved economy and federal pandemic aid have allowed the ag budget to grow.
2019 brought the launch of the Pennsylvania Farm Bill, which supports programs from meat processing to urban ag. This year’s budget increased funding for water quality and conservation districts by more than $150 million.
“To me, the contrast is to look at where we started and where we’re ending, and they’re almost unrecognizable,” Redding said.
