Governments provide funding to help B.C. poultry industry with costs of 2014 AI outbreak

May 8, 2015 – Two funding initiatives worth up to $1.58 million have been provided to help B.C. poultry producers re-establish their operations and mitigate the impact of future risks following an outbreak of notifiable avian influenza in the Fraser Valley this past winter.

The funding will come from the federal-provincial-territorial Growing Forward 2 programs AgriRecovery and AgriRisk.  The AgriRecovery framework allows federal and provincial governments to respond to unforeseen disasters that result in extraordinary costs for producers and where the assistance required is beyond what is available under existing programs.

AgriRisk supports the research and development as well as the implementation and administration of new risk management tools for use in the agriculture sector.

“The value of government and industry partnership has been evident in our successful response to the *avian flu outbreak, and this funding is one more step in that process,” says B.C. Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick. “By helping B.C.’s impacted poultry farmers recover the cleaning and disinfection expenses they incurred in helping to limit the viruses spread, we’re encouraging B.C.’s farmers to continue their hard work in providing local, high-quality foods.”

“The funding for the AgriRecovery claim and the AgriRisk initiative goes hand in hand and it’s much appreciated by industry,” says Garnet Etsell, Chair of the B.C. Poultry Industry Captive Insurance Company and Director of the 2014 Industry Emergency Operations Centre. “The B.C. poultry industry is thankful for the assistance, and both the provincial and federal governments’ timely help in reducing the economic hardship experienced by those affected by the 2014 avian influenza outbreak through the AgriRecovery program. The AgriRisk initiative will help the industry continue its leading edge work on developing a risk mitigation strategy that will further reduce the effects of future threats.”

The funding, known as the 2014 Canada-British Columbia Avian Influenza Assistance Initiative, developed under the federal-provincial-territorial AgriRecovery framework, will provide operators of infected commercial premises up to:

• 90 percent reimbursement for extraordinary cleaning, disinfection and stage two composting costs, to a maximum of:

• $2.39 per turkey

• $1.80 per broiler breeder ($2.93 justified by acceptable receipts)

• For egg layers receipts are required to a maximum of $5.00 per bird.

• 90 per cent reimbursement for repair and replacement costs of equipment damaged as a direct result of cleaning and disinfection activities;

• 90 percent of the destruction and disposal costs of eggs, chicks or birds that could not be marketed as a direct result of avian influenza,

and

• Payment for birds from infected premises that died prior to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency destruction order to a maximum of:

• $60 per Broiler Breeder

• $70 per Meat Turkey

• $30 per Egg Layer

The initiative will also reimburse 90 percent of cleaning and disinfection costs incurred by the two small flock premises identified during the response. The Ministry of Agriculture will contact the 13 commercial and small flock producers identified during the response efforts to begin the process, as well as industry representatives, and will post additional information and materials at www.gov.B.C..ca/agribusinessriskmanagement.

In addition, the B.C. Poultry Association will receive up to $325,025 in federal funding under the AgriRisk Initiatives Research and Development stream to help the industry implement an insurance product that will cover poultry producers for costs associated with any future notifiable avian influenza outbreak.