MN, IA congress members question USDA oversight in Charles City chicken plant failure; all Pure Prairie IA birds ‘depopulated’
(ABC 6 News) – MN Representative Brad Finstad and IA Senator Chuck Grassley sent an open letter to Sec. Tom Vilsack with the US Dept. of Agriculture Monday, questioning Pure Prairie Poultry’s failures.
Pure Prairie Poultry filed for bankruptcy more than a month ago.
Since then, the Charles City plant has not paid employees and the IA Dept. of Agriculture took control of 1.3 million chickens Pure Prairie Poultry claimed they could not feed.
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An update from the IA Dept. of Agriculture states that “depopulation of all Pure Prairie Poultry, Inc. birds located at Iowa farms concluded on Friday, October 25,” and had taken place over about eight days.
The letter from MN and IA congress members is embedded in full below:
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst also offered the following statement:
“Pure Prairie Poultry’s abrupt closure shows the importance of proper vetting and oversight at USDA to ensure the agency’s multi-million dollar grants and loans are actually helping producers, rather than being flushed down the drain and harming entire rural communities in the process,” said Senator Ernst via a press release. “Encouraging the growth of meat processing and strengthening our supply chain is a cause I can support, but this lack of accountable spending hurts our farmers, livestock, and taxpayers.”
A USDA spokesperson also offered this statement:
“Over the course of this Administration, USDA has been working furiously to rebuild and create new markets for farmers, after many important ones were decimated by trade wars and the COVID-19 pandemic. To this point, millions of dollars of investments in these lawmakers’ states are providing critically important new options for farmers, strengthening local and regional food supply chains, expanding independent processing capacity, lowering input costs, and more, actions which many of these signers have championed. At the same time, given its importance as a processing option for Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin farmers, USDA is working to help the facility reopen. Rather than trying to score political points, those members of Congress should work with USDA to reopen the facility and pass a new Farm Bill, which is now two years late.”