Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 1: Last summer egg price has served. We had the avian flu.
Speaker 1: Egg prices have since come down, and I guess like
Speaker 1: we've sort of forgotten about it.
Speaker 2: I haven't. I have not forgotten about avian flu. Well,
Speaker 2: it looms large in my mind as I continue to
Speaker 2: daydream about becoming a small scale chicken ground.
Speaker 1: Well, what is happening with that things have improved?
Speaker 2: I was talking to ornithologist that I'm friendly with, and
Speaker 2: he says a lot of the infestations in wild birds
Speaker 2: seem to have subsided, and that was kind of the
Speaker 2: vector for infection. But it is interesting if you look
Speaker 2: at egg prices, egg prices now have basically normalized from
Speaker 2: the record that we saw in sort of I think
Speaker 2: it was actually December of last year, so at least
Speaker 2: from a mar perspective, it has faded from recent memory.
Speaker 1: Right, And so you know, while we do all these
Speaker 1: episodes about various disruptions and things that happen, and then
Speaker 1: it goes on and it's sort of like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: like can we do it better in the future, right, like,
Speaker 1: did we learn anything from this episode of sort of
Speaker 1: major disruptions? Is there going to be a change in
Speaker 1: the law, Is there going to be a change in logistics?
Speaker 1: Is there going to be a change in supply chains?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Is there a way to avoid a disruption and an
Speaker 1: outbreak the likes of which we saw in a twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two Absolutely?
Speaker 2: And I remember we recorded that episode with Glenn Hickman,
Speaker 2: the president of Hickman Family Farms, which has a bunch
Speaker 2: of chickens. It's a chicken producer and egg producer. And
Speaker 2: I remember he was describing the existing system for handling
Speaker 2: Avian flu and we got into some of the way
Speaker 2: it works with him. So he was talking about compensation,
Speaker 2: for instance, and from talking to him, it seems like
Speaker 2: there is room for improvement. There's also a large question
Speaker 2: over whether or not the US should start just vaccinating
Speaker 2: commercial chicken flocks.
Speaker 1: You know what I didn't know until preparing for this episode.
Speaker 1: I didn't know Delaware was a huge chicken Did you
Speaker 1: know that it's a huge chicken powerhouse state.
Speaker 2: No, I had no idea. I've driven through Delaware a
Speaker 2: few times, and I have I have to say, I
Speaker 2: have not noticed a lot of chickens wandering around, but
Speaker 2: of course they wouldn't just be wandering around, they would
Speaker 2: be in big, sort of barn like structures.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I would have guessed if someone says,
Speaker 1: what state do you think? You know what? I don't know,
Speaker 1: like what I Maybe I would have said, like Arkansas, Yeah, Arkansas, right,
Speaker 1: or maybe Texas or one of the southern states. But apparently,
Speaker 1: like Delaware is like this huge chicken power house.
Speaker 2: All right, well, we have to dig into why Delaware
Speaker 2: is a chicken powerhouse and what we can do about
Speaker 2: future avian flu outbreaks.
Speaker 1: We do literally have the perfect guest for this episode,
Speaker 1: because we are speaking with Delaware Senator Chris Coons, who
Speaker 1: is a and I didn't know this. He is the
Speaker 1: co chair of the Senate Chicken Caucus, and he is
Speaker 1: the co sponsor of a bill that they're trying to
Speaker 1: move forward called the Healthy Poultry Assistance and Indemnification Act,
Speaker 1: which are trying to in some way improve upon the
Speaker 1: existing system for compensating farmers affected by an avian flu outbreak.
Speaker 2: Gotta love the Chicken Caucus.
Speaker 1: Senator Coons, thank you so much for coming on Odlocks.
Speaker 1: What happens now to farmers if they are in an
Speaker 1: area under current law, in an area where avian flu
Speaker 1: is discovered.
Speaker 3: Well, the good news and the bad news is that
Speaker 3: as a country, we're very good at identifying hipathogenic avian
Speaker 3: influenza outbreaks or HPAI outbreaks. And what happens, frankly, is
Speaker 3: that the farmer whose flock is infected promptly gets a
Speaker 3: control order, has to depopulate, has to destroy his entire flock,
Speaker 3: and is then compensated by USDA for that. However, under
Speaker 3: current policy, all the other poultry farms in a six
Speaker 3: mile radius or a ten kilometer radius around that HPAI
Speaker 3: case are not allowed to bring new flocks until the
Speaker 3: virus is deemed fully contained. So let's say you're a
Speaker 3: poultry farmer and I live two three miles away, and
Speaker 3: I'm a poultry farmer, and you tragically have an HPAI infection,
Speaker 3: You destroy your whole flock, You get compensated for that,
Speaker 3: But now I can't have any more turns in my
Speaker 3: chicken house. I can't bring in any more new flocks
Speaker 3: and be compensated. That's the current situation.
Speaker 2: So I remember when we spoke to Glenn Hickman mid sized,
Speaker 2: well fairly large to mid sized poultry farmer. He was
Speaker 2: saying that the other thing that isn't covered is if
Speaker 2: you need to buy new chickens, for instance, to restock
Speaker 2: your flock. Are there other associated costs that poultry farmers
Speaker 2: just aren't compensated for it.
Speaker 3: Yes, my sense is that growers undergo significant financial struggles,
Speaker 3: but there is a real gap between those who have
Speaker 3: a positive HPI case and those who aren't compensated in
Speaker 3: the same area. And I am optimistic that, working with
Speaker 3: my friend and partner, Senator Wicker and the other fifteen
Speaker 3: members from across the country of our bipartisan Senate Chicken Caucus,
Speaker 3: that we're going to be successful in adding additional compensation
Speaker 3: through the farm build this year.
Speaker 2: Can I say, I am already a fan of the
Speaker 2: Chicken Caucus, and I think a lot of people when
Speaker 2: they hear that name are sort of tickled by it.
Speaker 2: But what does the Chicken Caucus actually do well?
Speaker 3: The Chicken Caucus recognizes that chicken is a really important
Speaker 3: agricultural product for all of the United States. It's critical
Speaker 3: to my home state of Delaware, but across the country
Speaker 3: there's three hundred thousand people who work in the poultry industry.
Speaker 3: It generates about forty five billion dollars a year, and
Speaker 3: there's major operations in about thirty states. But instead of
Speaker 3: our having a common and cohesive voice in the Senate
Speaker 3: when I got here thirteen years ago, there really wasn't that.
Speaker 3: And so my dear friend, our late colleague, Senator Johnny
Speaker 3: Isaacson of Georgia, Johnny and I launched the Chicken Caucus
Speaker 3: in twenty thirteen. Part of this is just good old
Speaker 3: home state interests. For me, Delaware has two hundred times
Speaker 3: more chickens than people. It generates about seven billion a
Speaker 3: year in economic activity for my state. It really defines
Speaker 3: agriculture in Delaware. And in fact, this year we're celebrating
Speaker 3: the century of the broiler chicken industry in Delaware, which
Speaker 3: began with an accident. A missus Cecil Steele ordered a
Speaker 3: small number of chickens through a mail order company and
Speaker 3: got hundreds of them, and then ended up actually discovering
Speaker 3: that because we are so close to New York and
Speaker 3: Philadelphia and Baltimore and Washington, that she could really make
Speaker 3: a successful business out of raising thousands of chickens a year.
Speaker 3: And now there are millions in Delaware and around the country.
Speaker 3: I view it as, in many ways the most important
Speaker 3: animal protein in our country. And the Chicken Caucus focuses
Speaker 3: on the opportunities and challenges for export and domestically of
Speaker 3: the American chicken industry.
Speaker 2: Joe, did you know that you can still send baby
Speaker 2: chicks through the US mail?
Speaker 1: I did not know that, Can I just say so?
Speaker 1: We were recording this episode a little differently, just full disclosure.
Speaker 1: Were recording the interview first, and we're going to do
Speaker 1: the intro after. And this was going to be the
Speaker 1: story that I was going to tell on the intro,
Speaker 1: because while doing some prep I read about the story
Speaker 1: of the woman who meant to order fifty chickens and
Speaker 1: accidentally got five hundred chickens and then started a huge industry.
Speaker 1: And I was going to ask Tracy if this.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: What happened to Delaware last year during the worst of
Speaker 1: the AVM flu outbreak.
Speaker 3: Well, we had some significant losses. There were poultry growers
Speaker 3: who weren't able to earn the same kind of income
Speaker 3: they historically had. We did manage to get quick and
Speaker 3: effective control of the outbreak. The University of Delaware's Agriculture
Speaker 3: School has dedicated programs and trained extension agents. The del
Speaker 3: Marva Chicken Association and our Farm Bureau have worked very
Speaker 3: closely together to make sure that everyone in our agricultural
Speaker 3: community is well aware of the risks of HPAI and
Speaker 3: how to deal with it.
Speaker 4: And it can have a real impact.
Speaker 3: Both directly in terms of the loss of chickens and
Speaker 3: revenue and indirectly in terms of socializing people visiting from
Speaker 3: one farm to another.
Speaker 4: But we've got it well underhand.
Speaker 3: We have a very talented State Sectionctary of Agriculture who
Speaker 3: is well grounded in our culture industry, and in the end,
Speaker 3: we've come through it, I think stronger than ever.
Speaker 2: So walk us through the legislation that you're introducing, what
Speaker 2: it actually does, and how it would differ from the
Speaker 2: existing form of compensation which you laid out earlier.
Speaker 3: It essentially says, if you undergo the same financial struggles
Speaker 3: because of the Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Inspection
Speaker 3: Service the APHIS rules in terms of how you deal
Speaker 3: with HPAI, you'll get the same compensation if you're within
Speaker 3: that six mile radius and your economic activity is harmed
Speaker 3: than you would if you actually had a positive outbreak
Speaker 3: if you had an infection in your flock.
Speaker 4: It also simplifies the.
Speaker 3: Way that you calculate the indemnated payments so that growers
Speaker 3: have greater security. And I'm very excited about Senator John Boseman,
Speaker 3: the most senior Republican on the Agriculture Committee, coming to
Speaker 3: visit a in Delaware two fridays from now. He's going
Speaker 3: to spend the day visit with some of our producers
Speaker 3: and growers and talk to leaders in our egg industry,
Speaker 3: and we're going to be talking through exactly what this
Speaker 3: last HPAI outbreak meant for growers in Delaware and what
Speaker 3: this legislation would do for us and for all the
Speaker 3: chicken industry in the country. I am hopeful that with
Speaker 3: Senator Boseman's leadership, it will get included in the farm.
Speaker 4: Bill later this year.
Speaker 2: Does the bill differentiate at all between large and small farmers,
Speaker 2: because I think a lot of people will think maybe
Speaker 2: small scale farmers need additional support, but a large company
Speaker 2: like say a Pilgrim's Pride, I mean, they seem to
Speaker 2: be doing okay just looking at their share price. Tyson
Speaker 2: Tyson isn't. But I think there are some other issues there,
Speaker 2: but does it differentiate it.
Speaker 3: Briefly, No, And let me briefly be clear, the integrated
Speaker 3: business model for growers is quite different. So the vast
Speaker 3: majority of the farmers in Delaware who are raising chicken
Speaker 3: have other jobs and they have one or two or
Speaker 3: three chicken houses on their property, and a company like
Speaker 3: Purdue or Tysons brings the chicks to the farm, provides
Speaker 3: them with feed, with antibiotics, with support and monitoring, and
Speaker 3: then whenever they've grown fast enough to then be taken
Speaker 3: back to be processed, they come to the farm and
Speaker 3: take them away. And so as the poultry grower, as
Speaker 3: the chicken farmer, what you really own is the house,
Speaker 3: and you provide the supervision, the labor, the active maintenance
Speaker 3: of the house.
Speaker 4: And you tend the flock.
Speaker 3: That's why part of the focus of this bill is
Speaker 3: on the economic harm of not being able to have
Speaker 3: more flocks come through your houses. But there are hundreds
Speaker 3: of Delawareans who own one, two or three chicken houses
Speaker 3: and these are assets that are you know, thirty fifty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, So this is really aimed at them. It
Speaker 3: is really aimed at reducing the economic harm suffered by
Speaker 3: lots of middle class working families who are chicken farmers
Speaker 3: but who often also have other income, but where the
Speaker 3: impact to them and their family of being shut down
Speaker 3: for months at a time can be significant.
Speaker 1: Tracy, you really could do this. I did not realize
Speaker 1: that for a lot of chickens are produced as someone's
Speaker 1: like sort of second or third form of income.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can supplement my Bloomberg salary. Senator, is just
Speaker 2: remind me that model that you just described, is that
Speaker 2: called contract poultry farming.
Speaker 3: Yes, the integrated model where you have large processors like
Speaker 3: Tysons or Purdue, and then hundreds and hundreds of farmers
Speaker 3: who are on contract with particular processors has worked fairly well.
Speaker 4: In del Marbo.
Speaker 3: We've got a system where the growers have options, they
Speaker 3: can switch between the five big companies in our region
Speaker 3: if they want, and the integrators are responsible for the larger, messier,
Speaker 3: more challenging, more capital intensive parts of the process, both
Speaker 3: the hatchery, the delivery, the trucking, and the processing of
Speaker 3: the chicken.
Speaker 4: And the chicken growers really.
Speaker 3: Are responsible for what's in their backyard for their chicken house,
Speaker 3: how it's operated, and how it's maintained and it's worked
Speaker 3: in our region, and it's worked relatively well for a
Speaker 3: century now.
Speaker 1: So just to be clear in terms of the upgrades
Speaker 1: that your bill would propose, what is the name again, sorry,
Speaker 1: of your new bill.
Speaker 4: I think it's literally called the HBAI.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it would compensate farmers who didn't who were
Speaker 1: affected because they couldn't introduce new chickens in the area,
Speaker 1: even if they didn't have a positive test. It would
Speaker 1: simplify the payout on the payout, how big is the
Speaker 1: pot of money total is there? Is it caped or
Speaker 1: is it just However, much like if there were a
Speaker 1: big national outbreak, is there a cap on how much
Speaker 1: would be paid out from the USDA budget?
Speaker 4: I don't know that.
Speaker 3: I don't think so, but I also, frankly, within the
Speaker 3: scope of the USDA budget would expect this would be
Speaker 3: a relatively small line it so.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 2: Traditionally in the US the way we've handled avian flu
Speaker 2: outbreaks is basically by trying to isolate the cases, destroy
Speaker 2: the affected flock, and stamp it out that way. But
Speaker 2: there's some discussion of maybe moving to a vaccine based model,
Speaker 2: and there are other countries that have started to do this,
Speaker 2: China being a notable example, is that a viable option
Speaker 2: for America. Should we instead of compensating farmers for millions
Speaker 2: of dead chickens, should we perhaps be looking at mass vaccinations.
Speaker 3: Well, that is something that the USDA is currently considering.
Speaker 3: They are running HPAI vaccine trials, but there are no
Speaker 3: currently approved HPAI vaccines, and we have to be careful
Speaker 3: with this and make sure that there is a global
Speaker 3: decision about whether or not to move forward with vaccination
Speaker 3: as the means of addressing HPAI, because it's a truly
Speaker 3: global market, and it's a significant portion of Delaware's chicken
Speaker 3: production and of our US chicken production is for the
Speaker 3: global market. So the EU, for example, is slated to
Speaker 3: start vaccinations for poultry soon, whereas the UK prohibits vaccinations
Speaker 3: of poultry. And I think it's that efforts to vaccinate
Speaker 3: American flocks don't have the unintended adverse impact of shutting
Speaker 3: off key export markets for US around the world.
Speaker 1: So there are trade relationships that we have that stipulate
Speaker 1: certain nature of the chickens that get exported, etc. And
Speaker 1: so depending on what happens with the vaccination, that could
Speaker 1: be in violation theoretically, is that the idea that's right.
Speaker 3: So there are countries that I think are inappropriately using
Speaker 3: HPAI as an excuse to stop importing American chicken. We
Speaker 3: have long been barred from the Chinese market, for example,
Speaker 3: which is had been one of our largest, most profitable markets,
Speaker 3: actually ironically less for the chicken meat than for the pause.
Speaker 3: It's something that often surprises audiences when I tell them that,
Speaker 3: in some ways the most profitable part of chicken grown
Speaker 3: in Delaware is the export of their pause to the
Speaker 3: Chinese market that's been shut off US for a number
Speaker 3: of years under the flimsy excuse that HBAI if there
Speaker 3: are outbreaks in other parts of the United States justifies
Speaker 3: barring exports from Delaware. We've tried to get regionalization understood
Speaker 3: and accepted. If there's an HBII outbreak in Washington State,
Speaker 3: for example, to use that as an excuse to prevent
Speaker 3: del Marva chicken from being exported into a market around
Speaker 3: the world, I think is unjustified. But we also have
Speaker 3: some countries that have said, if you begin vaccinations, we
Speaker 3: will bar your chickens from being exported into our country.
Speaker 4: On that icens Tracy.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of chicken feed, by the way,
Speaker 1: I so am I.
Speaker 2: They're supposed to be good for your skin too, lots
Speaker 2: of collagen. They're delicious, Senator. Just on the vaccination point,
Speaker 2: I believe there are also medical concerns. So the worry
Speaker 2: is that if you were to vaccinate flocks that you
Speaker 2: might still get infections, but they would just be less noticeable.
Speaker 2: The chickens wouldn't get sick, and then they would sort of,
Speaker 2: I guess, become silent spreaders of the disease to unvaccinated birds.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: That's a concern with any vaccine is that if it's
Speaker 3: not sufficiently efficacious, if it doesn't have the impact of
Speaker 3: stomping out the infection, it can simply lead to it
Speaker 3: spreading more broadly, not being noticed because the carriers are asymptomatic,
Speaker 3: and then the long term of public health consequences can
Speaker 3: be significant. So I think it's important that the current
Speaker 3: vaccine trials that USDA is undergoing be allowed to be
Speaker 3: thorough and complete. It would be a big change in
Speaker 3: our policy to deal with HPAI through vaccination, and if
Speaker 3: that comes to pass, we want to make sure that
Speaker 3: it's medically sound, that it sound as a matter of
Speaker 3: public health, and that it sound as a matter of
Speaker 3: its potent impact on our poultry industry.
Speaker 1: Forgive me for asking what maybe sort of a politics question,
Speaker 1: but you know, you talk about your work with the
Speaker 1: late Senator Johnny Isaacson. In this case, you're working alongside
Speaker 1: the senator from Mississippi, Senator Wicker.
Speaker 4: You know, we were.
Speaker 1: Used to as consumers of news hearing about these like
Speaker 1: huge pitched battles in DC that always come down to
Speaker 1: the last second in areas like this, chicken farming, something
Speaker 1: like this. Is there more of this activity, bipartisan consensus
Speaker 1: activity than maybe the general public realizes.
Speaker 4: Yes, Joe, there is.
Speaker 3: And frankly, that's one of the reasons I was attracted
Speaker 3: to forming the Chicken Caucus with Johnny and to continuing
Speaker 3: to sustain it and lead it is that it's something
Speaker 3: that helps pull together senators from across the country and
Speaker 3: from different backgrounds.
Speaker 4: And look, that's.
Speaker 3: Part of the history of the Farm bill is that
Speaker 3: the Farm Bill has long been broadly bipartisan. The Farm
Speaker 3: Bell in twenty eighteen got eight votes. And my hope
Speaker 3: is that a chair stabinaw and ranking Member Boseman will
Speaker 3: get that strong a support with this legislation this year,
Speaker 3: and adding this piece, the HPAI Act to the Farm
Speaker 3: Bill would help secure some additional support from around the
Speaker 3: country within my own state. I'm really struck at how
Speaker 3: organizations that don't necessarily or always support every legislative initiative
Speaker 3: I take, like the American Farm Bureau Federation, or Egg
Speaker 3: Producers or the Del Marve Chicken Association, they're enthusiastically in support.
Speaker 4: Of this legislation.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, each of us as
Speaker 3: Senators comes here to advance the interests and concerns of
Speaker 3: our constituents, and comes here with some ideological or philosophical bands.
Speaker 3: I have enjoyed and benefited from finding core concerns of
Speaker 3: my constituents, like the vibrancy of our poultry industry that
Speaker 3: really aren't ideological, that really don't have a Republican or
Speaker 3: democratic attinge to them, and then finding friends and partners
Speaker 3: I can work with on things like this. Roger and I,
Speaker 3: Senator Wicker and I have worked on a range of
Speaker 3: different things, from national service to neglected tropical diseases to
Speaker 3: the Chicken Caucus, and that has helped us to find
Speaker 3: our way towards legislating together on other topics.
Speaker 2: Since Joe asked about bipartisan support, let me ask the
Speaker 2: devil's advocate question, which is, why do farmers get extra
Speaker 2: support from this type of crop or poultry or animal loss.
Speaker 2: I mean, other people start businesses, if there's an act
Speaker 2: of God of some sort, maybe they have insurance for it,
Speaker 2: maybe they don't. They have to take on those costs themselves.
Speaker 2: Why do farmers deserve government support?
Speaker 3: Tracy, your question presumes that we don't provide billions and
Speaker 3: subsidies for coastlines that frankly, we have to pay out
Speaker 3: every time there's a hurricane season, or that we don't
Speaker 3: provide billions in disaster relief every time there's a tornado
Speaker 3: or a wildfire or a drought.
Speaker 4: And the reality is that we do.
Speaker 3: Farming is very difficult, It is unpredictable, it is dependent
Speaker 3: on the weather, it's dependent on the markets. And as
Speaker 3: you well know, we have the most productive agricultural sector
Speaker 3: on the planet. And as I have spent time in
Speaker 3: the developing world, in the Global South, visiting with smallholder
Speaker 3: farmers whose yields are a tenth of what ours are.
Speaker 3: I have come to appreciate the broad and the deep
Speaker 3: history and the infrastructure here around supporting agriculture, crop insurance
Speaker 3: programs for youth like Future Farmers of America, for h
Speaker 3: financing access to credit, infrastructure investments and hybrids, and developing
Speaker 3: new seeds and new strains. Our support federally for agriculture
Speaker 3: is really remarkable, and that's why we have the safest,
Speaker 3: most secure, most productive agricultural system in the world. And
Speaker 3: it's why we not only have enough to feed every American,
Speaker 3: but we send commodity agricultural products from the United States
Speaker 3: to feed the hungry and the starving around the world.
Speaker 3: Just a few weeks ago, I was with a bipartisan
Speaker 3: delegation through the Aspen Institute in Kenya and we visited
Speaker 3: both a refugee camp in the far Northwest, a remote
Speaker 3: and difficult and harsh place where there's a quarter million
Speaker 3: refugees from Sudan being sustained and fed through the World
Speaker 3: Food Program. And I got to visit a new factory
Speaker 3: in Nairobi where they're manufacturing something that really was initially
Speaker 3: piloted here in the United States, and factories in Georgia
Speaker 3: Andian Rhode island that takes peanuts and milk solids and
Speaker 3: vegetable oil and micro nutrients and makes a nearly miraculous
Speaker 3: paste called plumpy nut that can take children. Literally plumpy nut,
Speaker 3: and if you want to do a show on plumping nut,
Speaker 3: I would be excited. It has the technical term r
Speaker 3: UTF or ready to use therapeutic food, an acronym only
Speaker 3: a bureaucrat could love. But Johnny was very passionate about
Speaker 3: plumpy nut. I first heard about it from him because
Speaker 3: Georgia peanut farmers are so supportive of this critical life
Speaker 3: saving paste. And I got to visit a pediatric ward
Speaker 3: in a clinic at this a refugee camp where tragically,
Speaker 3: children on the edge of starvation were being nursed back
Speaker 3: to health through medical interventions.
Speaker 4: But when plumpy nut is available, and.
Speaker 3: It is in that refugee camp available, it can help
Speaker 3: revive children and adults who have been severely and acutely malnourished.
Speaker 3: So I think it's important for us to recognize that
Speaker 3: some of the interventions we're providing, like these payments to
Speaker 3: poultry growers, don't just help sustain our poultry economy, don't
Speaker 3: just help sustain farmers in the United States, but help
Speaker 3: sustain us as the reserve provider of nutrition to a
Speaker 3: lot of the world.
Speaker 1: What is the sort of status, how does it get
Speaker 1: folded into the Farm Bill? And what is the sort
Speaker 1: of broader industry support that this has.
Speaker 3: This particular legislation has tremendous support. I'm really grateful for
Speaker 3: the ways in which we have a dozen co sponsors
Speaker 3: that are bipartisan. The United Egg Producers, the farm bureaus
Speaker 3: in eighteen states, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National
Speaker 3: Chicken Council have all supported it, and it would be
Speaker 3: added to the Farm Bill as an amendment if Senators
Speaker 3: Stabnaw and Bozeman Dorset and accepted, it would go into
Speaker 3: what's called a manager's package as the bill is taken
Speaker 3: up on the floor or possibly as it comes through committee.
Speaker 3: But look, if you've got broad bipartisan support for a
Speaker 3: common sense solution to a problem that could impact poultry
Speaker 3: growers in thirty states, that's exactly the sort of thing
Speaker 3: that ends up getting done without there being a floor boat,
Speaker 3: just by having an added.
Speaker 4: As amendment to the bill.
Speaker 2: So, Senator I want to ask just one more question,
Speaker 2: which is you know last year we had the flu outbreak,
Speaker 2: we saw the huge run up in egg prices. They've
Speaker 2: since come crashing down. What are you hearing from Delaware
Speaker 2: poultry farmers, your constituents, What are their concerns now?
Speaker 3: Well, their concerns are making sure that they continue to
Speaker 3: have strong market access.
Speaker 4: In fact, one of.
Speaker 3: The larger egg producers in Delaware just got a grant
Speaker 3: I think we announced it a few days ago to
Speaker 3: put rooftop solar on their chicken houses. Because energy costs
Speaker 3: are a big part of egg production and poultry growing.
Speaker 3: One of the real challenges that is a result of
Speaker 3: these heat waves we're seeing that I believe are caused
Speaker 3: by climate change is that maintaining the temperature in a
Speaker 3: chicken house so that the chickens don't all broil before
Speaker 3: they're done growing, and so that eggs can have safely.
Speaker 3: That's a key input, and so the cost of maintaining
Speaker 3: poultry houses successfully is a big deal.
Speaker 4: One of the other things.
Speaker 3: That we're trying to do is to make sure that
Speaker 3: we continue to have commercial flocks that are viable even
Speaker 3: though there are detections of hypathogenic avian influenza. Last year,
Speaker 3: we spent nearly a billion dollars on this. But to
Speaker 3: be clear, we are out of the woods. The last
Speaker 3: detection in the United States was now back in April,
Speaker 3: and ongoing surveillance testing of the wild bird population, which
Speaker 3: is where HBAI comes from, indicates that the virus has
Speaker 3: subsided for now. So I do want to say just
Speaker 3: how grateful I am and many of us are for
Speaker 3: APHIS and the Department of Agriculture for what they do
Speaker 3: to help make sure that culture growers aren't driven out
Speaker 3: of business by these outbreaks, that they're identified, that they're
Speaker 3: managed properly, they're contained, and then we're able to go
Speaker 3: back to enjoying America's most affordable, most ecologically sustainable, highest
Speaker 3: quality food protein, which is chicken.
Speaker 1: Senator Koons, thank you so much for joining us. Until
Speaker 1: this had no idea there was a Senate chicken caucus.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna maybe spawn several more follow up episodes,
Speaker 1: so appreciate you coming on odd lots.
Speaker 3: I am actually holding a bejeweled large chicken that Johnny
Speaker 3: and I bought together in Nigeria, So if we if
Speaker 3: you ever on some visuals for the podcast.
Speaker 4: Yes, let me know.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tracy. I really enjoyed that conversation. Are you
Speaker 1: gonna do it? Are you gonna start a side hustle
Speaker 1: of growing chickens?
Speaker 2: I think it's a few years off, Joe. But I
Speaker 2: did love the origin story of Delaware as a chicken powerhouse.
Speaker 2: That was amazing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's a the story twards Dark. Have you read?
Speaker 1: Do you know the full story?
Speaker 4: Then? No?
Speaker 2: So did the senator leave something out?
Speaker 1: No, he didn't leave anything out. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: an interesting sort of macabre ending to the story. So
Speaker 1: according to uh I read online Cecil long Steal. This
Speaker 1: is according to the Delaware Women's Hall of Fame. So
Speaker 1: she accidentally she started this chicken empire in Delaware in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three because she ordered fifty chicks and accidentally
Speaker 1: got five hundred, right, and so she became this huge
Speaker 1: chicken magnate in Delaware. And then she grew you know
Speaker 1: that famous threat about like the tomatoes where it's like, uh, yes,
Speaker 1: So she kind of did that because then she.
Speaker 2: Got five hundred chickens and they all had my baby chicks, and.
Speaker 1: It just multiplied exactly. And then she then after you know,
Speaker 1: once she got going a year later and she realized
Speaker 1: that this was taking off. Then she ordered a thousand chicks.
Speaker 1: They became very rich. They sound it sounds good. And
Speaker 1: then her husband, David Wilmer Steel, was actually elected to
Speaker 1: the state Senate. Also good. Then they bought a yacht, okay,
Speaker 1: and then in nineteen forty the yacht exploded accidentally. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, and Cecil and her husband, all the guests
Speaker 1: were fine, but both Cecil and her husband were killed
Speaker 1: in it. So anyway, what seemed like a sort of
Speaker 1: like happy fortunate thing, and oh, it's like this like
Speaker 1: accidental order, becoming a chicken magnate, getting rich, getting elected
Speaker 1: to the state Senate by a yacht had an unhappy ending.
Speaker 2: That's sad on a happier note. So maybe you don't
Speaker 2: want to know, because I might die, I might become
Speaker 2: really rich and die on all right, noted risk factor.
Speaker 2: But I did think it was a really interesting discussion
Speaker 2: the way he sort of described the landscape of the
Speaker 2: American poultry industry. And I had heard about that business
Speaker 2: model he described the contract poultry farming before. And I
Speaker 2: believe there are some well, there are some tensions between
Speaker 2: small scale growers and the larger companies like a Tyson
Speaker 2: or a Purdue or whatever. We should dig into that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely market structure questions, because there are all these
Speaker 1: things about both that particular structure of growing. But then
Speaker 1: there are also questions about industry concentration in the stockyards
Speaker 1: and who things like that. So there's plenty more to
Speaker 1: do on this topic.
Speaker 2: Yeah. In the meantime, you know who has really good
Speaker 2: chicken feet? Who Tim Howan? And they're in New York.
Speaker 1: Now, oh, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Their original store was in Hong Kong. Yeah, and they've
Speaker 2: opened a couple here and they're really good.
Speaker 1: I'm a big I love eating a chicken feet.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's do.
Speaker 2: It chicken feet Excursion. Shall we leave it there?
Speaker 1: Let's leave it there.
Speaker 2: This has been another episode of the Oddlots podcast. I'm
Speaker 2: Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 1: And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Speaker 1: Follow our guest Senator Chris Coons. He's at Chris Coons.
Speaker 1: Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Arman and Dashill
Speaker 1: Bennett at Dashbot, and check out all of the Bloomberg podcasts.
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