Branded Blog

Working with the Trump administration to combat bird flu and lower egg prices

By Rep. Randy Feenstra (IA-04)

As of Thursday February 27^th, more than 166 million chickens and turkeys in the United States have been affected by High Path Avian Influenza (HPAI), a highly contagious and deadly disease that impacts poultry, cattle, and can even spread to humans. In my home state of Iowa alone, approximately 30 million birds have been infected with this virus since 2022 with more than 12 million being in my home county – Sioux County. This outbreak has created massive uncertainty for our producers, caused egg prices to skyrocket, and underscored the ever-present need for swift foreign animal disease prevention, mitigation, and response.
 
Representing the top egg-producing district in the country, addressing the outbreak of bird flu, supporting our producers as they work to repopulate their flocks, and working to bring egg prices down for our families has been a top priority for me. That’s why – alongside 22 of my House colleagues – I led a letter in mid-February to our new Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, asking that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) deploy every tool in the toolbox to resolve this crisis, lend a helping hand to our producers, and bring relief to American families facing sticker shock at the grocery store.
 
In our letter, we asked the USDA to pursue an aggressive, yet voluntary, vaccination strategy for flocks and implement commonsense movement controls that apply to all animals that present disease risk to prevent spread. We also called for the creation of an HPAI Strategic Initiative at USDA to engage researchers, producers, and other industry stakeholders on comprehensive response efforts, pinpoint on-farm biosecurity measures, and determine better ways to protect chicken, turkeys, cattle and all infected species from the spread of HPAI. With this outbreak expected to surpass the $3.3 billion in damages from the 2014-2015 outbreak, this initiative would ultimately save taxpayer dollars by establishing a proactive approach to mitigate, prevent, and respond to bird flu.
 
In addition to this letter, I also recently met with Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Naig, about the need to deliver immediate financial relief to our producers and support agricultural research on vaccine development, disease transmission, and better mitigation strategies at institutions like Iowa State University in Ames. We also agreed that we must pass a five-year Farm Bill with robust investments in FAD prevention, response, surveillance, and mitigation to keep our farms operational.
 
With uncertainty grappling families and farmers, the Trump administration’s announcement of its HPAI strategy to end the surge of bird flu cases, support our producers, and lower egg prices for our families is welcome news for Iowa and our nation. I am glad that many provisions that I called for were outlined in this strategy, including fairer indemnity payments for our producers, increased biosecurity measures on our farms, and an aggressive, yet voluntary, vaccination strategy to prevent mass depopulation of chickens and turkeys. I thank Secretary Rollins for her rapid work and response to the bird flu outbreak. She is truly a friend and ally of agriculture.
 
As a member of the House Agriculture Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, I look forward to working with USDA and the Trump administration to bring egg prices down, stand with our producers, and prevent and mitigate the spread of foreign animal disease.