US farms need money to prevent foreign animal diseases here
American farmers and ranchers undertake incredible responsibilities to feed and fuel our country and the world. They work long hours from sunup to sundown to ensure that our grocery stores and meat counties are fully stocked and we can enjoy nutritious meals. Yet, American agriculture faces a multitude of threats to this core mission.
Regulations like WOTUS saddle our producers with mountains of paperwork, high input costs caused by inflation squeeze margins, low commodity prices hamstring farm income, and the death tax threatens to end rural traditions and put family farms out of business permanently. Taken together, these challenges make farming and ranching – already demanding professions – even more difficult.
However, a covert – yet extremely alarming – threat that requires our constant attention is the spread of foreign animal disease (FAD) within our borders.
The most recent data from the federal government confirms that more than 147 million birds – mainly chickens and turkeys – have been affected by bird flu, and over 11,000 wild birds have tested positively for the virus. As a result, tens of millions of birds have been destroyed causing egg prices to skyrocket and leaving poultry and egg producers with major uncertainty about the path forward. Similarly, we must remain vigilant about the threat that African Swine Fever (ASF) poses to our hog farmers. According to research conducted at Iowa State University, ASF would generate nearly $80 billion in economic losses for the pork and beef industry, cut 60,000 American jobs, and lead to a reduction in pork and beef prices anywhere between 50 and 60 percent.
The bird flu outbreak is just the latest warning that our food security depends on healthy flocks and herds nationwide. It’s the responsibility of lawmakers – particularly those of us on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee – to do more to support the surveillance, prevention, and mitigation of FAD outbreaks.
In August, the day before spending time at the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, we had the unique opportunity to tour the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (VDL) at Iowa State University in Ames, which is one of only eleven fully accredited Tier 1 labs within the National Animal Healthy Laboratory Network (NAHLN). We met with veterinarians, diagnosticians and veterinary toxicologists to learn more about how they test animal samples to detect various illnesses and diseases. The VDL also works closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) on prevention, surveillance, and mitigation initiatives.
In the Farm Bill, which we passed out of the House Agriculture Committee with bipartisan support last May, we acknowledged the importance of FAD prevention and response by fully funding the NAHLN, the National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP), and the National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank (NAVVCB). This three-legged stool of animal health supports on-farm biosecurity efforts, vaccine stockpiles, diagnostic test kits, emergency response, and farm education initiatives on FAD mitigation and prevention. Coordination among local, state, and federal partners; farmers and ranchers; our university systems; and other pertinent stakeholders is vital to keeping animal diseases out of our country, and in emergencies, critical to responding in an effective and efficient manner.
The Farm Bill also included the Beagle Brigade Act – which was signed into law on January 6th, 2025 – to have the National Detector Dog Training Center train dogs, including beagles, to inspect cargo, baggage, and vehicles at our borders and detect foreign diseases that pose a significant threat to agriculture. These detection measures at our border and other ports of entry ensure that protect American agriculture from the scourge of disease outbreaks, safeguard the health and wellbeing of livestock and poultry, and keep our farmers, ranches, and producers financially whole.
While our work to prevent and combat the spread of foreign animal disease never truly ends, investments like those in last year’s House-passed Farm Bill are crucial to responding to the current bird flu outbreak and keeping ASF and foot-and-mouth disease out of our hog confinements and cattle yards. Representing agricultural producers in Iowa and Pennsylvania, and advocating for American farmers in all fifty states, we recommit our efforts to passing the Farm Bill and ensuring that President Trump can sign it into law as quickly as possible. We cannot ignore the current crisis nor wait for the next to take decisive action for the good of American agriculture.
This op-ed was originally published in the Des Moines Register on February 6, 2025.