WASHINGTON, D.C. — After finally getting some relief from the ebbing of the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus in pigs, American farmers, regulators and politicians are wrestling with the foreign market complications of the sudden onset of avian influenza.
They’ve lost the Chinese market and only have partial access to 38 other countries’ markets. But that partial access is what U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack considers a success in a challenging situation.
“We don’t have any incidences on the east coast, so why would you say that you can’t buy poultry from Virginia or North Carolina,” Vilsack told the North American Agricultural Journalists April 27, after failing to convince his Chinese counterpart that not all U.S. poultry needed to be banned.
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“I think they need to see for themselves the work that our industry is doing.”
A Chinese technical delegation plans to visit the U.S. this summer to see the avian influenza control regime, both as a useful primer and as a way of assessing how good American controls are, Vilsack said.
Avian influenza, or bird flu, from an as yet unknown source, has infected millions of birds in the upper U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, causing mass liquidations of sick chickens and turkeys. Already poultry slaughter and processing companies are having trouble getting supplies.
Vilsack said USDA and other bodies are following the same sorts of steps that were used to reverse the spread of PED in pigs.
Representative and House agriculture committee Democratic heavyweight Collin Peterson, who described his region of northwest Minnesota as ground zero for the outbreak, said the disruption is great and may challenge the future of some farms. While there is U.S. government compensation for flocks depopulated after reporting an outbreak, that compensation is only partial and does not cover months of cleanup and zero production.
“We may need better biosecurity going forward,” said Peterson.
He warned other parts of the U.S. not be complacent about infection risk. He believes wild waterfowl are responsible for the outbreak.
“The thing that people need to watch for is when these ducks go to Canada … they’re going to mix up with east coast ducks and the folks in the east better be paying attention because this is going to be a big problem,” said Peterson.
Vilsack said he is focused on having regional controls and not countrywide bans.
ed.white@producer.com
