State ‘depopulates’ over a million broiler chickens weeks after Pure Prairie Poultry’s closure

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship has confirmed the euthanizing of about 1.3 million broiler chickens left stranded on 13 Iowa farms following the closure of Pure Prairie Poultry in Charles City earlier this month.

The company had notified state officials on Sept. 30 that it could no longer afford to purchase feed for the birds, then the Charles City chicken processing plant abruptly shut down and laid off its workers on Oct. 2.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) had quickly received a court order allowing it to seize custody of the chickens on the Iowa farms and arrange to provide feed for them.

IDALS said in an update last Friday, Oct. 25, that it worked extensively with “state and federal agencies, as well as industry partners,” to find a producer or producers who could use the chickens for meat even at a reduced price or for free, but those efforts were unsuccessful.

In a statement, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig expressed frustration with the outcome, referring to the role of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in overseeing companies like Pure Prairie Poultry.

Pure Prairie had received $45.68 million in November 2022 through the USDA to help with costs opening the Charles City facility – a $6.96 million grant from USDA’s Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program and a USDA loan guarantee for $38.72 million from the Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan Program.

“This is an incredibly unfortunate situation and raises serious questions about USDA’s oversight of taxpayer dollars,” Naig said. “Congress should exercise its oversight authority to ensure that something like this does not happen again and that those responsible are held accountable.”

IDALS said the costs to Iowa taxpayers for feeding, managing and ultimately euthanizing the chickens could be $1.5 million to $2 million or higher, and said the department “will pursue all available avenues to recoup taxpayer costs from responsible parties, including through possible future legal remedies.”

According to a report by Iowa Capital Dispatch, a spokesperson with USDA said the investment in the plant was made to reopen the plant, “for the benefit of farmers, workers and the Charles City community.”

“Rather than trying to deflect attention away from a decision he made, Secretary Naig could instead work constructively with USDA, creditors, and the Charles City community to find a way to reopen the plant to preserve an important processing option for Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin farmers,” the USDA statement read.

The spokesperson said USDA is searching for ways to reopen the plant and has worked “closely and as supportively as possible” with state departments of agriculture through the federal indemnity program and poultry trusts to help growers who relied on the facility.

The initial hope when Pure Prairie Poultry announced it didn’t have money to pay to feed the chickens had been to find buyers or processors who could take the chickens as they reached market weight, thus sparing them from being euthanized and wasted, and providing some return on the cost to raise and feed them.

However, large-scale processors typically have limited flexibility to accept additional birds, and there were legal disputes over ownership and lien rights on the chickens, thwarting the effort, IDALS said.

The department had secured a tentative agreement with Tyson Foods to add Saturday production and take the birds for 50 cents each, but that deal collapsed when parties including creditors with liens on the chickens said they would challenge the sale in court, leading Tyson to withdraw its offer.

Proposals were considered to process and donate the chickens to help Iowans facing food insecurity, but those ideas were also hindered by legal and logistical challenges, the IDALS report said.

Without a processor able to handle the volume and the looming threat of legal action, IDALS informed the court that “depopulation” was the only remaining option.

“While IDALS believes depopulation should be a last resort, given the lack of processing capacity and willing buyers for the chickens, combined with the ever-increasing feed and yardage costs for the chickens with no end-market, depopulation provides the state, and everyone, with finality to this unfortunate circumstance and limits the costs to the state,” IDALS said in a report to the Sioux County District Court, where the emergency motion had been filed.

The chickens represented a variety of ages, as they had been hatched and grown in anticipation of providing a continual supply to Pure Prairie’s processing operations.

The chickens were owned by the company, which had contracts with growers in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin to raise them for the company. Pure Prairie was also responsible for providing feed for the chickens.

The District Court granted IDALS authorization to proceed with euthanizing the chickens, with the directive that the largest and least marketable birds be the first to go, in case a last-minute solution could be found for some of the younger chickens. But no offers were found, and IDALS began the depopulation process on Oct. 17.

IDALS reported that veterinarians oversaw the euthanizing, following “humane guidelines established by the American Veterinary Medical Association.”

The process concluded last Friday, Oct. 25, with the birds’ remains being disposed of by composting them on the affected farms.

The situation has sparked outrage from animal welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

PETA said it had reports that thousands of chickens were left on transport trucks for five days without food, water or ventilation after the closure of the Charles City processing plant. According to PETA, federal officials confirmed the deaths but said the trailers were parked off the plant property, placing them outside USDA jurisdiction.

The organization said the Charles City Police Department is investigating the incident after the group alerted Floyd County Attorney Todd Prichard to multiple “whistleblower” reports regarding incidents involving birds left on parked trucks at the facility.

PETA also said it had whistleblowers who had worked in the plant who contacted the organization with reports that the humane slaughtering methods that were supposed to be used by Pure Prairie Poultry had sometimes fallen away in the final weeks of the plant’s operations.

The organization said it has plans to erect a billboard near the shuttered Charles City facility to highlight its concern over what it called “broader issues of animal cruelty in the poultry industry.”