U.S. Rep Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisconsin, expressed his frustration with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for being unresponsive to concerns expressed about the Pure Prairie Poultry (PPP) bankruptcy and its impact on farmers contracted to grow chickens for the now-defunct company.
“The silence from USDA is deafening. Secretary Vilsack is not only ignoring Members of Congress, but is also telling our small- and medium-sized farmers that they are not worth the time to take the proper corrective measures to ensure this never happens again. No federal agency will go unchecked for a failure of this magnitude, and I demand USDA and Secretary Vilsack to answer immediately for their blatant neglect of America’s farmers,” Van Orden, a member of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a statement.
The Minnesota-based PPP filed for bankruptcy in September, then went on to cease operations at its plant in Charles City, Iowa. Ultimately, the company stated that it no longer had the resources to feed the more than 2 million chickens that about 50 contract growers in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin were raising for PPP.
The company had only been in business since 2021, but it had received funding from the USDA, including a guaranteed loan of $38.7 million from USDA Rural Development’s Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan Program (FSCGLP) and a grant of $6.9 million from USDA Rural Development’s Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program (MPPEP).
On October 25, Van Orden and a number of other U.S. representatives and senators wrote a letter to Vilsack, expressing worries about oversight on USDA funding programs, how it impacted contract growers and ultimately left more than a million chickens without care.
Those who signed the letter were all Republicans, and nearly all of them were from the three states where PPP chickens were raised. Also signing the bill was House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thomspon, Pennsylvania, and Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member John Boozman, Arkansas.
The letter has a response deadline of November 8, and according to Van Orden, a response has still not been received.
