Gov. Mike DeWine said the federal government needs to speed up bird flu research to contain the outbreak, which has lost nearly a third of its egg-laying chickens.
Darke County is the center of Ohio’s egg industry and its poultry farmers have been particularly hit hard. This loss drew Gov. Mike DeWine and other state and industry leaders out Thursday afternoon.
“Production of eggs, production of poultry have really suffered some tremendous losses,” DeWine said.
Ohio Department of Agriculture Brian Baldridge, and state veterinarian, Dr. Dennis Summers, joined DeWine in the city of Versailles in western Ohio to discuss the impact of this outbreak on Ohio’s egg and poultry industry. Ohio is the second largest egg producing state in the country.
DeWine said his primary focus is speeding up federally funded research into bird flu and he plans to meet with the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to advocate for this.
“And I think what we need, frankly, is just a real sense of urgency. And that would be my message when I talk to the secretary,” DeWine said.
Bird flu is a strain of influenza that is highly contagious between birds and often causes illness and death in those animals infected.
According to Baldridge, 15.5 million birds have been destroyed to mitigate the spread of the illness.
According to data from the USDA, Ohio is at the heart of the outbreak with more than 5.7 million affected birds across the state.
The USDA also reported that 28 commercial flocks and 3 backyard flocks have been affected by the outbreak since Feb. 28. The highest number of confirmed detections of bird flu have come from Darke and Mercer Counties.
Cases have been slowing down but the state is still feeling the impact, Summers said.
“Currently we’re at 73 premises that have had an impact across Ohio. And yes, we are seeing the detection rates slow and fall,” he said. “They are not necessarily gone, but we are seeing this slowed down a bit.”
Egg prices have been on the rise due to bird flu across the country and as the nation’s number two egg producer, Ohio’s higher numbers have raised concerns for consumers.
The Executive Vice President with the Ohio Poultry Association, James Chakeres, said egg prices will likely continue to be higher while layer facilities repopulate.
“Our farmers are working every day to get those barns cleaned and disinfected so they could repopulate and start producing eggs again. That takes time,” he said. “It takes that chick 21 days to hatch, it takes 18 weeks before that hen is going to start laying eggs again.”
Baldridge said mainly egg layer facilities have been impacted by the destruction of birds in the state to prevent further spread.
“We have one duck production facility, but our larger facilities were the main ones that were hit, and turkeys,” he said. “To put it in perspective, as far as the layer facilities, about over 30% of our layer birds here in Ohio have been depopulated.”
Going forward representatives said they will continue to work to prevent the spread of bird flu. According to DeWine, they will also look at backdating compensation for farmers.
“One of the things that the federal government has done is up the amount of compensation. Well, things I’ll take up with the Secretary is to see whether or not that could be backdated, basically retroactive, because some of these farmers obviously occurred before the the dates that went into when it went into effect.”
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