Workers heading into a Rose Acres egg layer facility after an avian influenza outbreak. (Devan Ridgway/WTIU News)
Indiana has lost nearly seven million commercial and hobby chickens, egg laying hens, ducks, and turkeys since 2022.
The spread of avian influenza shows no signs of slowing, as outbreaks have been reported nearly every week this year.
Rose Acre Farms in Jackson County lost over two and a half million egg layers in late January. CEO Tom Wesner recently testified to the Senate Agriculture Committee about the situation.
“Since 2015 we have lost 10 million birds to avian influenza, six million of those since January 1 of this year,” he said. “That's 25% of our current production.”
Wesner emphasized the need to develop and deploy a vaccine as soon as possible.
“I'm not sure vaccine is 100% the answer, but I think that if we go down that road and we start there, there'll be people (that) work hard and spend a lot of money to try to come up with answers,” he said.
He also said the industry needs continued financial assistance to weather the storm.
“There's been $1.4 billion for the indemnity paid out since ‘22,” he said. “I would ask that we continue to look at that with common sense and fairness. It's a way to have a stop-gap measure to keep people in business.”
Indemnity payments aren’t the only tool keeping farms afloat as they rebuild their flocks. Trey Malone with Purdue’s Managerial Economics and Agribusiness department said there are insurance programs available through the Farm Service Agency.
“Insurance payments work like what you would expect insurance now, it doesn't follow underneath like the standard crop insurance, but there are livestock insurance programs and indemnity programs implemented by FSA,” he said.
Malone said that, even with these programs in place, money is tight.
Rebuilding a flock can take up to six months after an outbreak. That’s six months of financial uncertainty and personal stress for flock owners.
“This could be extremely dire,” he said. “I think that there are always cases where we experience some type of negative shock, and the biological lags that are required to rebuild a flock and start producing eggs again can be pretty disastrous.”
And that six-month rebuilding period assumes that no other infections occur. If one does, the process starts again.
Not only are farmers worried about their balance sheets, but they also feel an emotional stress.
“These people love what they do, they work really hard to give those hens a good life,” he said. “Those layers are something that's quite valuable to them. So, the idea of eliminating them is, setting the money aside, it can be pretty emotionally damaging to have to go through these experiences.”
Read more: Dozens of sandhill cranes found dead, likely due to bird flu
That’s where Purdue’s Farm Stress team comes in. Team member Zoe Robinson said they focus on helping ag industry workers better manage their mental health during their day-to-day jobs.
“I went to FFA convention this year to talk with youth about the importance of taking care of your mental health and the unique stressors that come with agriculture and the lives that they are living,” she said.
A large part of the work includes teaching people how to handle working in an industry where so much is determined by nature.
“There's so many aspects of agriculture that are ultimately out of our control,” she said. “If there is a disease going around, what prevention can you do to ultimately help your livestock or your operation? And then, like corn and soybeans, if you're growing those, if it doesn't rain, or if it's too dry or there's too much rain, there's just so many aspects out of their control.”
The team includes those with health and human science backgrounds as well as those with extensive knowledge of the business of agriculture.
For Robinson, who operates on the border of Ohio where many bird flu outbreaks have been reported, work has been busy.
“There's just so many mixed emotions that they could be going through,” she said. “So, some of the tools that we recommend is definitely how to cope with grief during this time.”
The biggest thing the team emphasizes, though, is that farmers are more than just their farming operation.
It’s an important reminder for an industry that often says ‘farming is a way of life.’
Read more: Agriculture Secretary outlines plan to combat bird flu
