WASHINGTON — A member of Congress issued a statement asking for responses from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack about the bankruptcy of Pure Prairie Poultry (PPP) and its impact on farmers across three states.

Representative Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) stated on Nov. 20 that the bankruptcy by Pure Prairie Poultry resulted in nearly 50 farmers and 2 million birds in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa going without feed or processing options.

“The silence from USDA is deafening,” said Van Orden. “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.”

Following the bankruptcy filing by PPP in September, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) ultimately decided  to depopulate the birds by late October. 

After that decision, nine members of Congress, including Van Orden, wrote a letter to Vilsack on Oct. 25 , concerned about how nearly $46 million in taxpayer dollars had been allocated to Pure Prairie Poultry only a couple of years before its bankruptcy.

In 2022, Pure Prairie Poultry received 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).

In his latest update, Van Orden stated that the response deadline for the letter was Nov. 8, and so far, Congress members have not received a response.