Iowa agriculture officials plan to introduce legislation in response to a case where a bankrupt poultry company left the state with more than a million chickens that couldn’t be sold.
Last fall, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship took custody of 1.3 million chickens from farmers who contracted with Pure Prairie Poultry. Soon after, the company closed its Charles City processing plant and the state paid to feed and care for the birds while looking for another processor.
At an Iowa House appropriations subcommittee, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said the state found one, but the processor was concerned about getting sued by Pure Prairie Poultry’s creditors.
“That deal fell through, and so we ended up having, unfortunately, to depopulate those birds and bear the cost for that. We paid the producers to care for those animals in the process, all of which resulted in a cost to the State of Iowa of $2.3 million.”
Naig says Iowa needs a mechanism to ensure that the state is free to sell or process livestock that it takes into custody. He says legislation addressing this issue will be included in the department’s policy bill.