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Vilsack pushes for poultry insurance program

Ag secretary Tom Vilsack says poultry producers need an insurance program to help protect them against catastrophic losses caused by diseases such as avian influenza.

Vilsack says such a program, similar to what livestock producers have, would provide more “predictability” for producers and their lenders.

“Right now, if a producer gets hit, he’s got to go to his banker, or she’s got to go to her lender, and say, ‘This is going to get worked out—the government’s going to help’,” says Vilsack. “But that lender doesn’t have a program that they can point to and say ‘okay’, like a livestock producer has.

“We need that.”

A proposed poultry insurance program was cut from the 2014 farm bill as Congress looked to reduce spending.

Government-funded indemnity payments to poultry producers who lost chickens and turkeys because of avian flu are expected to top 190 million dollars.

Vilsack made those comments during an impromptu news conference with reporters at the avian flu conference in Des Moines.