Senator Chris Coons on How to Fix Our Response to Avian Flu

Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:17)

Last summer, egg prices surged. We had the avian flu.

Egg prices have since come down, and I guess we've sort of forgotten about it.

Tracy Alloway (0:25)

I haven't.

I have not forgotten about avian flu. It looms large in my mind as I continue to daydream about becoming a small-scale chicken grower.

Joe Weisenthal (0:33)

Well, what is happening with that?

Tracy Alloway (0:35)

Things have improved.

I was talking to an ornithologist that I'm friendly with, and he says a lot of the infestations in wild birds seem to have subsided, and that was kind of the vector for infection. But it is interesting, if you look at egg prices, egg prices now have basically normalized from the record that we saw in sort of, I think it was actually December of last year. So at least from a market perspective, it has faded from recent memory.

Joe Weisenthal (1:03)

Right. And so, you know, we do all these episodes about various disruptions and things that happen, and then it goes on.

And it's sort of like, okay, well, like, can we do it better in the future? Right? Like, did we learn anything from this episode of sort of major disruptions? Is there going to be a change in the law? Is there going to be a change in logistics? Is there going to be a change in supply chains? Like, is there a way to avoid a disruption and an outbreak, the likes of which we saw in 2022?

Tracy Alloway (1:31)

Absolutely. And I remember we recorded that episode with Glenn Hickman, the president of Hickman Family Farms, which has a bunch of chickens. It's a chicken producer, an egg producer.

And I remember he was describing the existing system for handling avian flu. And we got into some of the way it works with him. So he was talking about compensation, for instance.

And from talking to him, it seems like there is room for improvement. There's also a larger question over whether or not the US should start just vaccinating commercial chicken flocks.

Joe Weisenthal (2:05)

You know what I didn't know until preparing for this episode? I didn't know Delaware was a huge chicken. Did you know that it's a huge chicken powerhouse state?

Tracy Alloway (2:13)

No, I had no idea. I've driven through Delaware a few times. And I have to say, I have not noticed a lot of chickens wandering around. But of course, they wouldn't just be wandering around. They would be in big sort of barn-like structures.

Joe Weisenthal (2:25)

I don't know what I would have guessed if someone says, what state do you think, I don't know, maybe I would have said Arkansas.

Tracy Alloway (2:31)

I would have guessed Arkansas.

Joe Weisenthal (2:33)

Yeah, Arkansas, right. Or maybe Texas or one of the southern states. But apparently Delaware is this huge chicken powerhouse.

Tracy Alloway (2:40)

All right. Well, we have to dig into why Delaware is a chicken powerhouse and what we can do about future avian flu outbreaks.

Joe Weisenthal (2:47)

We do literally have the perfect guest for this episode because we are speaking with Delaware Senator Chris Coons, who is, and I didn't know this, he is the co-chair of the Senate Chicken Caucus and he is the co-sponsor of a bill that they're trying to move forward called the Healthy Poultry Assistance and Indemnification Act, which is trying to in some way improve upon the existing system for compensating farmers affected by an avian flu outbreak.

Tracy Alloway (3:18)

Gotta love the chicken caucus.

Joe Weisenthal (3:20)

Senator Coons, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots. What happens now to farmers if they are in an area under current law in an area where avian flu is discovered?

Chris Coons (3:31)

Well, the good news and the bad news is that as a country, we're very good at identifying high pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks or HPAI outbreaks. And what happens, frankly, is that the farmer whose flock is infected promptly gets a control order, has to depopulate, has to destroy his entire flock, and is then compensated by USDA for that.

However, under current policy, all the other poultry farms in a six-mile radius or a 10-kilometer radius around that HPAI case are not allowed to bring new flocks until the virus is deemed fully contained. So let's say you're a poultry farmer and I live two, three miles away and I'm a poultry farmer, and you tragically have an HPAI infection, you destroy your whole flock, you get compensated for that. But now I can't have any more turns in my chicken house. I can't bring in any more new flocks and be compensated. That's the current situation.