You’re Paying for the National Poultry Improvement Plan
With the drama of the election and the recent huge bailout and spending bills flying through Congress, it’s easy to forget the kajillions of little things the federal government is churning out all the time.
So here’s one that caught my eye – the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has just announced a meeting “of the General Conference Committee of the National Poultry Improvement Plan.” It’ll be held at the at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta January 28, so book your plane tickets now if you want to go.
The meeting will be open to the public, but I was disappointed to learn that the public is not allowed to participate in the discussions during the meeting. I had thought that I would share my personal poultry improvement plan, which is to cook it in some oil and spices and plop it into folded corn tortillas with a dollop of sour cream.
The National Poultry Improvement Plan apparently brings together State agencies and poultry industry members, “acting as liaison between the poultry industry and the Department in matters pertaining to poultry health.” The meeting will discuss:
1. A pilot project for compartmentalization;
2. Rapid assay for Salmonella enteritidis;
3. Notifiable avian influenza reporting; and
4. Notifiable avian influenza indemnification.
Don’t know what that first one is. Controlling poultry diseases is good, but I’m on the fence about whether we need to spend taxpayer dollars on a meeting in Atlanta so that the poultry industry and the Department of Agriculture have a proper “liaison.” Reporting? Indemnification? It looks kinda like this is about wrapping the chicken business in red tape. But you decide for yourself if this is what you want done with your sawbucks.
APHIS is part of the Department of Agriculture, funded by the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The Senate bill is S. 3289, which has a full-year cost of about $870 per U.S. family. There’s no House agriculture spending bill yet – a month into the fiscal year.
The Department was funded for part of the year in a big temporary spending bill that Congress passed just before the October 1 beginning of the new fiscal year. About $8,000 per family in spending in one shot.
Here’s the current vote on S. 3289, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2009. Click to vote, comment, learn more, edit the wiki article about the bill.
nezumi
This is primarily a health-based bill, it appears to me. It seems barely 12 months ago we were all up in arms about Avian Flu and the possibility of a second major influenza epidemic (and reviewing what happened with the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1912, that would be a very, very serious blow to our economy and to the health of our people). Domestic poultry are currently a huge, open vector to this. Would you feel better if it were wrapped under NIH?
(I believe compartmentalization has to do with the growing movement to limit and track animals in regards to geographic movement, for easier tracing of outbreaks and reduction of available vectors for any infection.)
Homegrown Evolution
If an outbreak of avian flu happens it will be because of unsanitary conditions at large scale industrial poultry operations. I’m convinced that the National Poultry Improvement Plan’s agenda is to deflect the blame for a possible outbreak on to small farmers, backyard chickens keepers and wild birds. In short it’s propaganda campaign funded by our tax dollars in support of big business. This is a story to be watched carefully.