[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A REVIEW OF USDA ANIMAL DISEASE PREVENTION AND RESPONSE EFFORTS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LIVESTOCK, DAIRY, AND POULTRY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 18, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-6
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture
agriculture.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-768 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania, Chairman
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma DAVID SCOTT, Georgia, Ranking
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia, Vice Minority Member
Chairman JIM COSTA, California
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina
DOUG LaMALFA, California ABIGAIL DAVIS SPANBERGER, Virginia
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi SHONTEL M. BROWN, Ohio
DON BACON, Nebraska SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas
MIKE BOST, Illinois ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
DUSTY JOHNSON, South Dakota YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado
JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
TRACEY MANN, Kansas MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ,
RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa Washington
MARY E. MILLER, Illinois DONALD G. DAVIS, North Carolina,
BARRY MOORE, Alabama Vice Ranking Minority Member
KAT CAMMACK, Florida JILL N. TOKUDA, Hawaii
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota NIKKI BUDZINSKI, Illinois
JOHN W. ROSE, Tennessee ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois
RONNY JACKSON, Texas GABE VASQUEZ, New Mexico
MARCUS J. MOLINARO, New York JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
MONICA De La CRUZ, Texas JONATHAN L. JACKSON, Illinois
NICHOLAS A. LANGWORTHY, New York GREG CASAR, Texas
JOHN S. DUARTE, California CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
MARK ALFORD, Missouri ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
DERRICK VAN ORDEN, Wisconsin DARREN SOTO, Florida
LORI CHAVEZ-DeREMER, Oregon SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
MAX L. MILLER, Ohio
______
Parish Braden, Staff Director
Anne Simmons, Minority Staff Director
______
Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry
TRACEY MANN, Kansas, Chairman
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee JIM COSTA, California, Ranking
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi Minority Member
DON BACON, Nebraska ABIGAIL DAVIS SPANBERGER, Virginia
JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut
RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado
BARRY MOORE, Alabama JILL N. TOKUDA, Hawaii
RONNY JACKSON, Texas CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
MARCUS J. MOLINARO, New York DARREN SOTO, Florida
MARK ALFORD, Missouri DONALD G. DAVIS, North Carolina
DERRICK VAN ORDEN, Wisconsin ------
------
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Costa, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from California,
opening statement.............................................. 3
Mann, Hon. Tracey, a Representative in Congress from Kansas,
opening statement.............................................. 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Supplementary material....................................... 41
Miller, Hon. Max L., a Representative in Congress from Ohio,
prepared statement............................................. 6
Thompson, Hon. Glenn, a Representative in Congress from
Pennsylvania, opening statement................................ 4
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Witness
Moffitt, Hon. Jenny Lester, Under Secretary for Marketing and
Regulatory Programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Washington, D.C.; accompanied by Alecia L. Naugle, D.V.M.,
Ph.D., Associate Deputy Administrator, Veterinary Services,
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, USDA............... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Supplementary material....................................... 41
Submitted questions.......................................... 42
A REVIEW OF USDA ANIMAL DISEASE PREVENTION AND RESPONSE EFFORTS
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TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2023
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry,
Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in
Room 1300 of the Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Tracey
Mann [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Mann, DesJarlais, Bacon, Baird, Feenstra,
Moore, Jackson of Texas, Molinaro, Alford, Van Orden, Thompson
(ex officio), Costa, Spanberger, Caraveo, Pingree, and Davis of
North Carolina.
Staff present: Caleb Crosswhite, Justina Graff, Patricia
Straughn, Erin Wilson, John Konya, Daniel Feingold, Josh
Lobert, Michael Stein, and Dana Sandman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TRACEY MANN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM KANSAS
The Chairman. The Committee will come to order. Welcome,
and thank you for joining us at today's hearing entitled, A
Review of USDA Animal Disease Prevention and Response Efforts.
After brief opening remarks, Members will receive testimony
from our witness today, and then the hearing will be open to
questions.
It is an honor to chair this first hearing of the House
Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and
Poultry in the 118th Congress. As a fifth-generation Kansan,
having grown up on our family's farming operation, I rode pens
and doctored thousands of sick cattle at our preconditioning
feedyard. I understand the grit, tenacity, and courage that it
takes to make a living in agriculture and the burden and
responsibility for feeding the world that comes along with it.
Chairing this Subcommittee is a privilege for me, as I
represent the big 1st District of Kansas, which produces more
than $10 billion worth of livestock, dairy, poultry, and
products like beef, milk, and eggs every year. That does not
happen in a vacuum. It takes the entire animal agriculture
chain to make that happen, and we see it all in the big 1st.
From the producer to the feedlot and from the harvest facility
to the distributor, every role is important in delivering
protein to the market and to the consumer.
Back in 1915--and I have a button here from the convention
that year.* The Kansas Livestock Association was here on
Capitol Hill advocating for producers around the exact same
issues that we are looking at today: packers, stockyards, and
animal health. Foot-and-mouth disease was wreaking havoc at the
time, and Kansas producers stepped up to the plate to make a
difference and to fix problems. And here we are today more than
100 years later holding a hearing to review USDA animal disease
prevention and response efforts.
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* Editor's note: an image of this pen is located on p. 41.
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Today's hearing is particularly timely as we are in the
middle of the most devastating high-path avian influenza
outbreak on record, and African swine fever in the Dominican
Republic and Haiti is dangerously close to our shores.
Animal health issues don't always get the attention that
they deserve, but, as we have seen with past animal disease
outbreaks, there are enormous economic consequences that extend
well beyond the animal industry. The new farm bill must
continue to address these risks to animal health while
bolstering the long-term ability of U.S. animal agriculture to
be competitive in the global marketplace and provide consumers
around the world safe, wholesome, affordable food produced in a
sustainable manner.
Industry stakeholders and Congressional leaders had the
foresight to establish a three-tiered animal disease program
with mandatory funding to ensure the sufficient development and
the timely deployment of all measures necessary to prevent,
identify, and mitigate the catastrophic impacts that an animal
disease outbreak would have on our country's food security,
export markets, and overall economic stability.
As we work to craft this next farm bill, we must have a
comprehensive understanding of how these programs have been
implemented. We look forward to feedback on the lessons
learned, what is working, what should be reconsidered, and
where additional investment may be required.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mann follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Tracey Mann, a Representative in Congress
from Kansas
It is an honor to chair this first hearing of the House Agriculture
Committee's Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry in the 118th
Congress. As a fifth generation Kansan having grown up on my family
farm, I rode pens and doctored thousands of sick cattle at our
preconditioning feedlot. I understand the grit, tenacity, and courage
that it takes to make a living in agriculture, and the burden of
responsibility for feeding the world that comes along with it.
Chairing this Subcommittee is a unique honor for me as I represent
the Big First, where producers sell $10 billion worth of livestock,
dairy, poultry, and products like beef, milk, and eggs every year--more
than any other Congressional district.
That does not happen in a vacuum. It takes the entire animal
agriculture chain to make that happen--and we see it all in the Big
First. From the producer to the feedlot and from the harvest facility
to the distributor, every role is important in delivering protein to
the market and to the consumer.
Back in 1915--and I have a button from their convention that year--
the Kansas Livestock Association was here on Capitol Hill advocating
for producers around the exact same issues that we're looking at
today--packers, stockyards, and animal health. Foot-and-mouth disease
was wreaking havoc at the time, and Kansas producers stepped up to the
plate to make a difference and fix problems.
And here we are today--more than 100 years later--holding a
hearing, to review USDA animal disease prevention and response efforts.
Today's hearing is particularly timely as we are in the middle of the
most devastating high-path avian influenza outbreak on record, and
African Swine Fever in the Dominican Republic and Haiti is getting
dangerously close to our shores. Animal health issues don't always get
the attention they deserve, but as we have seen with past animal
disease outbreaks, their enormous economic consequences extend well
beyond the animal industry.
The new farm bill must continue to address these risks to animal
health while bolstering the long-term ability of U.S. animal
agriculture to be competitive in the global marketplace and provide
consumers around the world safe, wholesome, affordable food produced in
a sustainable manner.
Industry stakeholders and Congressional leaders had the foresight
to establish a three-tiered animal disease program with mandatory
funding to ensure the sufficient development and timely deployment of
all measures necessary to prevent, identify, and mitigate the
catastrophic impacts that an animal disease outbreak would have on our
country's food security, export markets, and overall economic
stability. As we work to craft the next farm bill, we must have a
comprehensive understanding of how these programs have been
implemented. We look forward to feedback on the lessons learned--what's
working, what should be reconsidered, and where additional investment
may be required.
The Chairman. With that, I would now like to welcome the
distinguished Ranking Member and the gentleman from California,
Mr. Costa, for any opening remarks that he would like to give.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM COSTA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA
Mr. Costa. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is great
to be here with our Subcommittee, and we thank you for your
leadership, and obviously, as you noted your own personal
family history with American agriculture from the part of the
country that you represent. I have a similar experience, third
generation farmer in California, and I am honored to represent
folks throughout the great San Joaquin Valley. We have had the
Chairman out there and part of the Committee in February, and
we thank him for coming out there, but he has been there many
times.
I happen to represent the most productive dairy county in
the country, believe it or not, Tulare County, and the highest
citrus county in the nation, and we do a lot of good things out
there. But this morning's hearing is important for the
Subcommittee's purpose because our witness is Under Secretary
Moffitt, who also is from California originally, and our good
doctor has a good understanding of the challenges we face with
livestock, poultry, and the other topics that are of this
Subcommittee's jurisdiction.
And while the livestock policy is typically addressed
outside the farm bill, there are crucial gains certainly in the
last farm bill that we created that ensure our food system is
secure. I am interested to hear the witness' testimony on those
programs because, as I say always, food is national security.
Food is national security, and I think all of my colleagues
here agree with that and the importance of maintaining American
agriculture's productivity, and its certainty to continue to
lead the world is so critical.
No issue embodies the message to a greater extent than
animal health programs. The inherent biosecurity measures in
this world that we live in that is interconnected is critical,
and therefore, protecting livestock operations in our country
and having the tools in place to address outbreaks is critical.
And therefore, our supply chain, which has been challenged here
in recent years as a result of the pandemic and other factors
both internally throughout the country, as well as externally
in terms of our exports is something that I think the entire
Agriculture Committee is focused on.
We have all seen firsthand how high-pathogenic avian flu
has devastated domestic poultry populations where depopulations
have had to take place. It certainly has increased, as we know,
the price of eggs. People say how could eggs increase so much?
Well, avian flu, I am told, is a result of about 70 percent of
the increase in egg prices.
So we have to continue to refine and improve our approach
to address animal disease. The USDA needs all the tools to
guarantee a robust response. We want to thank them for their
good work during this outbreak and previous outbreaks and their
containment efforts. Obviously, it is critical and is the
subject matter for today's hearing.
There are certain aspects of animal disease that are
difficult to contain, and the example as a primary driver of
our current outbreak has been migrating wild bird species that
interact between animal agriculture. It is just kind of the way
things are, and it is inevitable. But it is something that we
have to do and be challenged to prepare for. So I am looking
forward to talking to our witnesses and finding how these three
programs, the vaccine bank, the National Animal Preparedness
and Response Program, and the National Animal Health Laboratory
Network have been able to provide the foundation for preventing
and preparing for outbreaks. So I look forward to the testimony
of the witness. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Members
of this Subcommittee, as we address the important issues that
this Subcommittee faces. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member Costa. And thank
you for your partnership as we look at these important issues.
Next, I would like to recognize Chairman Thompson for any
opening remarks that he would like to make.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GLENN THOMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Thompson. Well, thank you so much. And good morning,
everyone. Thank you for all taking part in this hearing. Under
Secretary Moffitt and Dr. Naugle, thank you both for being here
today. I want to thank Chairman Mann, Ranking Member Costa for
holding this very timely and very important hearing.
From real-time disease response efforts to controlling
potential disease vectors like the feral hog population, to
monitoring a growing number of imported dogs from ASF-affected
countries, and stopping illegal entry of meat and fruit
products and byproducts, APHIS has a tremendous task in
protecting the health of the U.S. animal population.
I also want to say I have had some opportunities in my
travels around the country to spend some individual time with
your frontline APHIS folks, and they are great people. They are
dedicated to what they do. Whether it was preventing rabies
from coming from Mexico or the fever tick from crossing the
border and coming into our cattle, or, quite frankly, the feral
hog program that is so important because of the damage that
they do, their work and your work is much appreciated.
So I was proud of Congress' work in the last farm bill to
provide a historic investment in a suite of animal disease
preparedness and response programs. And as we draft the next
farm bill, it is imperative that we understand how these
existing authorities and resources have been utilized,
especially in the wake of high-path avian influenza and the
incoming threat of the African swine fever. We must ensure
these and related programs are having the greatest possible
impact. And those are at the top. Obviously, those get more
attention, but what you do each and every day, as I have
mentioned, the rabies threat coming across the border, the
fever tick, there is just so much that most people are not
familiar with, and we very much appreciate you being on the
frontlines.
Now, I hear all too often from folks back home and across
the country about their ongoing struggles with the high-path
outbreak, which has only reinforced my commitment to treating
food security as national security. As we learned the hard way
in 2014, 2015, biosecurity plays an enormous role in mitigating
the spread of the disease, and we want to ensure strong
measures are in place across all production methods.
That said, we also have to ensure these measures don't
unduly burden the day-to-day operations of our dedicated
producers. So I appreciate the Department's continued
collaboration with state officials and industry stakeholders
towards an efficient yet pragmatic response based on the latest
available science.
I would also be remiss if I didn't highlight CWD, chronic
wasting disease, which has been a big problem in many states
for deer populations, including my home State of Pennsylvania,
for quite some time. In total, it has spread to 29 other states
across the country. Last Congress, I was proud to work with
Congressman Kind and my House and Senate colleagues to enact
the Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act (Pub.
L. 117-328). And I look forward to working with you and my
colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to ensure that those
programs continue to receive the attention and the resources
that they deserve.
And with that, I again want to thank our distinguished
witnesses not only for being here today but for their important
work day-to-day, working to protect the health of our animal
populations.
And with that, I look forward to your testimony, and I
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thompson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Glenn Thompson, a Representative in Congress
from Pennsylvania
Under Secretary Moffitt and Dr. Naugle, thank you both for being
here today. I also want to thank Chairman Mann and Ranking Member Costa
for holding this very timely hearing.
From real-time disease response efforts, to controlling potential
disease vectors like the feral hog population, to monitoring a growing
number of imported dogs from ASF-affected countries, and stopping the
illegal entry of meat and fruit products and byproducts--APHIS has a
tremendous task in protecting the health of the U.S. animal population.
So I was proud of Congress' work in the last farm bill to provide a
historic investment in a suite of animal disease preparedness and
response programs.
As we draft the next farm bill, it is imperative that we understand
how these existing authorities and resources have been utilized.
Especially in the wake of high-path avian influenza, and with the
looming threat of African Swine Fever, we must ensure these, and
related programs are having the greatest possible impact.
I hear all-to-often from folks back home and across the country
about their ongoing struggles with the high-path outbreak, which has
only reinforced my commitment to treating food security as national
security.
As we learned the hard way in 2014 and 2015, biosecurity plays an
enormous role in mitigating the spread of the disease, and we want to
ensure strong measures are in place across all production methods.
That said, we also have to ensure these measures don't unduly
burden the day-to-day operation of our dedicated producers.
So I appreciate the Department's continued collaboration with state
officials and industry stakeholders towards an efficient, yet pragmatic
response based on the latest available science.
I'd also be remiss if I didn't highlight CWD, which has been a big
problem for the deer populations in Pennsylvania for quite some time
and has spread to 29 other states across the country.
Last Congress, I was proud to work with Congressman Kind and my
House and Senate colleagues to enact the Chronic Wasting Disease
Research and Management Act, and I look forward to working with you and
my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to ensure those programs
continue to receive the attention and resources they deserve.
With that, I again want to thank our distinguished witnesses, not
only for being here today, but for their important day-to-day work in
protecting the health of our animal populations.
I look forward to your testimony, and I yield back.
The Chairman. Great. And thank you, Chairman Thompson.
The chair would request that other Members submit their
opening statements for the record so the witness may begin her
testimony and to ensure that there is ample time for questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller of Ohio follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Max L. Miller, a Representative in Congress
from Ohio
Ohio is one of the top leading producers for livestock,
representing about \1/2\ of all Ohio agriculture production.
Ohio's cattle farmers raise approximately 296,000 cows
There are about 2,200 dairy farms in Ohio
Ohio raises more than 2.95 million hogs each year
As such, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service's ``APHIS'' efforts working with state
and local partners toward detection, prevention and rapid response
tools remain critical to address any potential animal disease outbreak.
Ohio ranks seventh in the nation in pork production and with 25
percent of pork goods exported, threats relating to foreign animal
diseases are a constant concern. Pork producers continue to face
increasing threats from foreign animal disease including African Swine
Fever. If a foreign animal disease outbreak were to occur, U.S. farmers
would immediately turn to APHIS, state animal health officials, and
other stakeholders for:
early detection, prevention and rapid response tools;
robust laboratory capacity for surveillance;
and a viable stockpile of vaccines to rapidly respond to the
introduction of a high-consequence diseases.
A foreign animal disease outbreak would immediately impact the
entire agricultural sector, and stifle needed foods supplies.
* * * * *
We look forward to the 2023 Farm Bill to review and strengthen
programs that safeguard the nation's food supply against threats posed
by foreign animal diseases, including veterinary diagnostic
laboratories to test for new or emerging animal diseases, as well as
funding to support animal disease surveillance.
The Chairman. Our witness for today's hearing is USDA's
Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Jenny
Lester Moffitt. She is accompanied today by Dr. Alecia Naugle,
who is the Associate Deputy Administrator for Veterinary
Services at USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services.
Under Secretary Lester Moffitt, thank you for joining us
today. We will now proceed to your testimony. You will have 5
minutes. The timer in front of you will count down to 0, at
which point your time has expired. Under Secretary Lester
Moffitt, please begin when you are ready.
STATEMENT OF HON. JENNY LESTER MOFFITT, UNDER
SECRETARY FOR MARKETING AND REGULATORY
PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
WASHINGTON, D.C.; ACCOMPANIED BY ALECIA L. NAUGLE, D.V.M.,
Ph.D., ASSOCIATE DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR,
VETERINARY SERVICES, ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH
INSPECTION SERVICE, USDA
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you, Chairman Mann, Ranking Member
Costa, Chairman Thompson, and Members of the Subcommittee.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to testify today.
As you mentioned, Chairman Mann, I am joined by Dr. Alecia
Naugle, Associate Deputy Administrator for the Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Services Veterinary Services Program. She
works closely with Dr. Rosemary Sifford, the U.S. Chief
Veterinary Officer. Together, they lead a workforce of
veterinarians and other personnel dedicated to protecting the
health and marketability of American livestock.
As Chairman Thompson mentioned, every day, APHIS employees
are out on the field, on farms, at the borders inspecting and
conducting surveillance of animal diseases. They are working
directly with individual farmers, ranchers, veterinarians,
states, and Tribal officials. They share best practices about
biosecurity and preparedness. They oversee imports and exports
of animals and animal products to ensure continued safe trade,
protecting existing and opening new markets for agricultural
products here and abroad.
Their efforts to protect these markets has been greatly
enhanced by the new animal health programs Congress provided in
the last farm bill. The new authorities and additional funding
are working. We are better prepared today because of those
programs. The 2018 Farm Bill gave us three interlocking
programs. They work incredibly well together and allow us to
form stronger partnerships with producers, states,
veterinarians, and others. These programs, coupled with
appropriations and the Secretary's ability to transfer funds
from the Commodity Credit Corporation, help us respond and be
prepared. All of us have a stake in keeping foreign animal
diseases out of the country, and these tools help us work
together.
The National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response
Program, or NADPRP as we call it, has allowed us to fund 180
different projects with our partners. We have funded projects
that have increased our surveillance for significant animal
diseases and that have enhanced our ability to standardize
sample collection. NADPRP has let us fund training exercises
and new methods for recovering from disease outbreaks. Key is
that it is not just us doing this important work but also our
partners and cooperators who bring their expertise in U.S.
animal health as well.
These projects fill important needs. They identify and
close small gaps in our overall preparedness and response
programs. We regularly say that an ounce of prevention is worth
a pound in cure. By that standard, this program is worth its
weight in gold.
The other two programs that the farm bill authorizes are
also critically important. We have funded over $20 million
worth of projects for the National Animal Health Laboratory
Network. We know that speed is important with animal health
emergencies, and having a broad network of laboratories to
identify where disease is lets us quickly eradicate it and
reduce the spread.
The third program, the National Animal Vaccine and
Veterinary Countermeasures Bank, we know that we have kept
foot-and-mouth disease out of the country for nearly a century,
and we are confident that the system of overlapping safeguards
that we have in place will continue to work. However, given the
massive cost that an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease would
cause, having vaccine at the ready is a very prudent measure,
an insurance policy should the worst occur.
These programs have better prepared us for foreign animal
diseases, but they are also building off of existing expertise
that APHIS has in preparing for and responding to disease such
as the outbreak of highly-pathogenic avian influenza. We know
that our methods in stamping out high-path AI are working. In
March 2023, we had just five cases in commercial facilities
when in March last year, we saw ten times that amount. We know
how and where to look for high-path AI. We know how to respond
quickly so producers can get back to producing food, how
important biosecurity is, and how to keep trade markets open as
well. We also know from our partners at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention that the currently circulating virus
strain poses a low human health risk to the public. And if
high-path AI cases surge again, with continued partnership with
states and producers, we know what to do, and we are ready.
With respect to African swine fever, our efforts continue
to keep this deadly virus offshore. We have enhanced
inspections, increased our surveillance capabilities, and
educated producers and veterinarians about the signs and risks
of the virus. I remain confident that we can keep this disease
away, but we are all prepared to respond to any incursion, and
the farm bill programs have helped us improve our readiness.
Mr. Chairman, we always want to keep these foreign animal
diseases out of our country, and these new tools that Congress
has given us have enhanced our efforts. We are better prepared
to detect, to respond, and to eliminate foreign animal diseases
because of them.
I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Moffitt follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jenny Lester Moffitt, Under Secretary for
Marketing and Regulatory Programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Washington, D.C.
Chairman Mann, Ranking Member Costa, and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on this
important topic. As Under Secretary for the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Marketing and Regulatory Programs, I see up close every
day how the hard-working employees of the Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS) are protecting and enhancing the health of
our nation's livestock and poultry.
I am joined by Dr. Alecia Naugle, Associate Deputy Administrator of
APHIS' Veterinary Services program. She works closely with Dr. Rosemary
Sifford, the Chief Veterinary Officer of the United States. Together
they guide a workforce of veterinarians and other personnel dedicated
to protecting the health and marketability of American livestock.
Their work is essential because too many farmers are in a
precarious position--an outbreak of an animal disease on their farm
would be disastrous. While the last couple of years have seen record
national farm income, we know that nearly 50% of American farmers have
had negative farm income. Our data shows that 40% of farms are small
and midsize farms where the primary occupation of the household is
farming, but the majority of their income to support their families is
from off-farm sources. Only 11% of American farmers are mid-sized or
larger--representing over 80% of the value of U.S. agricultural
production, which drove the record-level farm income at a time when so
many were struggling. And lest we not forget that 2% of those farms
that did exceedingly well were actually owned by investment banks and
institutional investors. Our farmers and ranchers deserve the
opportunity to compete in a marketplace where they have a shot at being
profitable.
Farmers and ranchers also face a changing climate which is causing
animal and pest populations to shift into new or expanded habitats.
This movement can result in increased spread of pests and diseases.
Under the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration and Secretary
Vilsack, USDA has been working hard to make our food supply chain more
resilient and provide rural communities with the tools they need to
thrive through investments in developing more, new, and better markets
for farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners.
USDA's efforts to protect animal health are fundamental to
achieving this goal. Every day, APHIS employees are out in the field,
on farms, and at the borders, inspecting and conducting surveillance
for animal diseases. They are working directly with individual farmers
and ranchers, veterinarians, states, and Tribal officials. They share
information and best practices about biosecurity and preparedness. They
oversee imports and exports of animals and animal products to ensure
continued safe trade, protecting and opening markets for agricultural
products here and abroad.
The 2022-2023 Outbreak of Highly-Pathogenic Avian Influenza
Since the first commercial detection of highly-pathogenic avian
influenza (HPAI) in Indiana in February of last year, APHIS and its
state partners have responded aggressively, relying on long-established
and well-practiced disease response plans that are proven to eradicate
this virus from commercial facilities. And we have been successful.
Compared to this time last year, we have a small fraction of the number
of positive premises in commercial flocks: five in March of 2023
compared to 51 in March of 2022. We know the virus load remains
prevalent in our wild bird population and APHIS, in partnership with
states and industry, remains vigilant.
Our colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) continue to assess that the circulating virus poses a low risk to
human health, so we remain focused on limited impacts to animal health.
The 2014-2015 outbreak of HPAI taught us the value of biosecurity.
Since then, USDA has emphasized its importance at every opportunity and
our efforts have had meaningful results. Producers have made
significant improvements in biosecurity, detection, and monitoring on
their farms, which has resulted in very little lateral, farm-to-farm
spread during this latest outbreak. In the 2014-2015 outbreak,
approximately 70% of the cases were due to lateral spread. In this
outbreak, lateral spread accounts for just 16% of the cases, a
remarkable improvement. But that number could be even smaller. Our
efforts show that even minor biosecurity measures have a massive impact
on whether the virus impacts a farm. We continue to stress more than
anything else, the importance of strong biosecurity to every producer--
from the largest commercial-scale farms to smallest backyard flocks.
And we ask for your continued partnership in sharing the important
message of biosecurity with poultry producers in your districts. Our
Defend the Flock campaign outlines resources and steps that every
producer can take to safeguard the health of their birds.
Our counterparts at the Agricultural Research Service are hard at
work developing a vaccine to counter the strains of the virus currently
circulating so that we are prepared in the unlikely event if we should
ever need to turn to vaccination to complement our eradication efforts.
This work is ongoing, and it will still be a while before a vaccine
could be commercially available and easily applied. Even then, there
would be many factors we would weigh before authorizing its use,
especially with respect to the likely trade impacts of a vaccination
campaign. We will continue to discuss these issues with stakeholders
and our trading partners and weigh all these perspectives before making
any decisions on policy.
At this stage of the outbreak, continuing our current strategy of
eradication or ``stamping out'' HPAI is our best and most effective
option. We can rapidly contain and eliminate the virus in commercial
poultry; in fact, the majority of cases in recent months have been
backyard flocks. APHIS and our state and industry partners and
producers respond quickly and aggressively to reduce viral spread among
poultry operations through rapid depopulation and disposal, and
surveillance testing for the virus in high-risk geographic areas.
On top of the field veterinarians and support staff who have been
leading the emergency response, I would like to highlight the excellent
work the APHIS trade staff has done in keeping as many export markets
open as possible. While some of these negotiations are done after we
experience an outbreak, APHIS has also made great strides in securing
regionalization agreements to prevent market disruptions. APHIS'
efforts on regionalization have ensured a science- and risk-based
approach that is consistent with APHIS obligations under international
trade agreements and the continued free flow of agricultural trade.
Instead of limiting U.S. exports from the entire country, these
negotiated agreements are often at the state or county level and are
consistent with approaches to address HPAI in a science-based and trade
facilitative manner. As a result, a contained outbreak in one part of a
state may have little bearing on the export possibilities of producers
in other parts of a state. This has been a huge benefit to producers
across the country and these efforts have greatly helped producers stay
afloat during these challenging times.
I thank every APHIS employee who has been deployed around the
country, often for weeks at a time, away from family and friends, to
respond to this outbreak and I thank our state partners for also
responding aggressively. This outbreak has highlighted the critical
need for public sector animal health professionals, specifically
veterinarians. We need a robust state and Federal workforce ready to
respond to any outbreak. We are continually evaluating opportunities to
recruit and retain talented professionals as well as encourage more
students to consider careers in animal science. Unfortunately,
veterinary student loan debt and other limitations may make public
sector positions less attractive to new graduates. We look forward to
working with Members of the Subcommittee and both chambers to identify
solutions to workforce challenges, especially in retaining highly
qualified, skilled professionals for the benefit of livestock and
poultry producers.
2018 Farm Bill Section 12101: Animal Disease Prevention and Management
We know that responding to animal health emergencies is difficult
and incredibly costly. The Secretary has used his emergency authority
to transfer nearly $800 million from the Commodity Credit Corporation
to combat the HPAI outbreak. The 2014-2015 outbreak cost taxpayers
around $1 billion. An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease or African
swine fever would have even more devastating economic consequences for
the country, producers, and consumers, with costs to the government and
producers into the tens of billions. Prevention and preparedness are
essential if we are to protect U.S. agriculture, our export markets,
and the stability of the U.S. food supply.
That is why we are so appreciative of the tools that Congress gave
us in the 2018 Farm Bill. The bill created a three-tiered program to
support animal disease prevention and preparedness. It included the new
National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP), the
new National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank
(NAVVCB), and additional funding for the National Animal Health
Laboratory Network (NAHLN). We are incredibly thankful for your
leadership in establishing these new tools and we have worked
diligently to fully implement these programs.
NADPRP gives APHIS additional resources to work with its partners
to expand the reach of its animal health programs and to identify and
fill in gaps in our existing preparedness and response capabilities.
Under NADPRP, APHIS provides funds to states, universities, industry
organizations, Tribal partners, and other eligible entities to support
projects that help prevent and prepare for the most serious animal
diseases that threaten U.S. livestock, poultry, and related industries.
Collectively, NADPRP projects boost the nation's capacity and
capability to detect, respond to, and recover from animal disease
outbreaks that may impact all livestock and poultry sectors and all
livestock and poultry operation types and sizes.
NADPRP projects develop programs and provide resources to:
increase producer's use of effective and practical
biosecurity measures;
training and exercises for animal agriculture emergency
responders and producers;
educate livestock and poultry owners on disease prevention
and build awareness of what happens in an outbreak;
develop and implement carcass disposal and decontamination
techniques;
create and test animal movement plans for outbreak
scenarios; and,
help states develop and exercise animal disease response
plans to enhance their readiness to quickly control high-
consequence animal disease outbreaks.
One major NADPRP success story is the Certified Swine Sample
Collector Training Program, a cooperative agreement with Iowa State
University, which has become a cornerstone of our African swine fever
prevention efforts. Iowa State worked cooperatively with major swine
industry organizations to develop, evaluate, and improve this highly
regarded and frequently used training program. NADPRP funded online
training videos and other materials to educate sample collectors, and
the swine industry has been instrumental in sharing this program with
producers and encouraging participation. This program is part of a
national diagnostic sample collection training program designed to
assure state and Federal animal health officials that producers,
caretakers, and other pork industry personnel have been trained through
a standardized process by accredited veterinarians to correctly
collect, handle, and submit samples. This would be invaluable in the
unlikely event of an outbreak.
Overall, about 24 percent of NADPRP projects have been focused on
improving biosecurity, the importance of which we now see with the HPAI
outbreak. About \1/3\ have been focused on improvements for
depopulation and disposal, which would be critical in the event of an
outbreak. The program has greatly improved the reach of our animal
health efforts and improved our preparedness and ability to respond to
foreign animal pests and diseases.
Last month, APHIS announced the FY 2023 list of projects funded
under this section of the farm bill. We awarded $15.8 million to 60
projects led by 38 states, land-grant universities, and industry
organizations to enhance our nation's ability to rapidly respond to and
control animal disease outbreaks. This year's projects focused on
enhancing prevention, preparedness, early detection, and rapid response
to the most damaging diseases that threaten U.S. livestock. Projects
will help states develop and practice plans to quickly control disease
outbreaks, train responders and producers to perform critical animal
disease outbreak response activities, increase producer use of
effective and practical biosecurity measures, educate livestock owners
on preventing disease and what happens in an outbreak, and support
animal movement decisions in animal disease outbreaks, among others.
APHIS also intends to fund additional projects that will be led by
Tribal partners and will announce those projects this spring.
The 2018 Farm Bill provided additional funding for NAHLN. NAHLN is
a nationally coordinated network and partnership of 60 Federal, state,
and university-associated animal health laboratories, which provides
animal health diagnostic testing to detect biological threats to the
nation's food animals, thus protecting animal health, public health,
and the nation's food supply. We are thankful to Congress for their
ongoing support for NAHLN through annual appropriations bills, which
provides most of the Federal funding for the network. Funding provided
by the farm bill supplements the existing yearly appropriation and
allows the laboratories to take on new and important projects that
enhance coordination and animal health diagnostics. As we saw with the
HPAI outbreak, the labs that are part of NAHLN are the backbone of our
disease surveillance and response, rapidly detecting disease and
providing insight into where to focus our eradication efforts.
APHIS has awarded $21 million in funding from the farm bill to the
NAHLN laboratories over the past 3 years, including a few projects
funded jointly with NADPRP. We plan to award an additional $7.5 million
this year. It is also worth noting that many NAHLN labs served as surge
capacity for human COVID-19 testing during the height of the pandemic,
demonstrating their value to our overall national healthcare
infrastructure beyond their critical role for animal health.
The third component to the farm bill's animal health program is the
National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank. While our
ultimate goal is to keep foreign animal pests and diseases out of the
country entirely, the vaccine and countermeasures bank will allow us to
respond quickly should a high consequence disease strike the United
States. Per the direction from Congress, the bank is primarily focused
on vaccines and countermeasures that would target an outbreak of foot-
and-mouth disease (FMD). APHIS has kept FMD out of the country for
nearly a century and we are confident that the system of overlapping
safeguards we have in place--including the exclusion of imports from
affected countries and at-the-border inspections of animals and animal
products--will continue to keep the disease out. However, given the
massive costs an outbreak of FMD would cause, having a vaccine at the
ready is a prudent measure which would work with our existing
inspection and eradication measures, and is an insurance policy should
the worst occur.
The vaccine bank is focused on providing coverage for the highest
priority strains of the FMD virus. APHIS, on the advice of the
technical committee that provides scientific recommendations and
oversees and guides the vaccine bank, has provided more than $56
million for the purchase of vaccine antigen concentrate and will invest
an additional $15 million this year.
Although much of the focus has been on acquiring vaccine antigen
concentrate, we also invested $520,000 in other countermeasures, such
as diagnostic test kits for foot-and-mouth disease and African swine
fever for the first time in 2022. We have a sources--sought notice open
to gather worldwide information regarding available test kits for those
two diseases and classical swine fever. We will make future purchases
after reviewing the responses, with the intent to purchase from more
than one source to ensure an adequate supply in case of an outbreak.
Response to the Threat of African Swine Fever
I mentioned previously how important it is to keep foreign animal
diseases out of the country. That is why APHIS took immediate steps to
strengthen our defenses when, for the first time in several decades, we
detected African swine fever (ASF) in the Western Hemisphere. ASF is a
devastating, deadly disease of swine that would have a significant
impact on U.S. pork producers and the economy if it were to be detected
in the United States. There is no treatment or vaccine available for
this disease approved for use in the United States, although we are
hopeful that the work of our colleagues in the Agricultural Research
Service will soon yield a vaccine that is fully tested and ready for
commercial production. The only way to stop ASF is to temporarily halt
the movement of all pigs and depopulate all affected or exposed swine
herds. A detection here would immediately close overseas export
markets, which are critical to the profitability of the swine industry,
and it would take many months or years to fully restore those markets.
When an existing cooperative disease surveillance program
identified the virus in pigs in the Dominican Republic in July 2021 and
later in Haiti, APHIS took swift action to augment and enhance its many
existing defenses. We already have a strong system of overlapping
safeguards in place, including restrictions against imports of animals
or pork products from ASF-affected countries. We looked closely at
potential pathways the virus could enter and worked with our partners
to close them. For example, our U.S. Customs and Border Protection
colleagues enhanced inspections of passengers coming from the region
and are closely monitoring the handling of regulated garbage from
airplanes. We worked with the Coast Guard to identify boats traveling
to Puerto Rico whose passengers could unintentionally carry the virus
and have conducted appropriate disease surveillance where the boats
were detected.
Most notably, we established a protection zone around Puerto Rico
and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since those are U.S. Territories, any
incursion of ASF onto those islands could trigger trading partners to
cut off trade from the mainland. The World Organisation for Animal
Health permits the establishment of a protection zone within an area
free of disease, as a temporary measure in response to an increased
risk from a neighboring country or zone of different animal health
status. The protection zone we created allows the continental U.S. to
retain its disease-free status and continue our international trade,
even if there is an ASF detection in Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin
Islands. It also allows APHIS to enhance surveillance and create
additional rules for movement restrictions of live swine and products
out of the protection zone, protecting the islands from the virus and
enhancing protections for the U.S. livestock industry.
Beyond establishing the protection zone, we are focusing additional
resources on Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. We have removed
feral swine in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands because feral
swine are a natural reservoir for the disease and could help the virus
spread quickly if it moved to those territories. We have also made
improvements to the diagnostic laboratory in Puerto Rico, providing
resources and technical assistance to increase that lab's capabilities
to run important diagnostic tests. We have enhanced inspections of
passengers traveling to and through the territories. We have run a
bilingual public education campaign in those territories and the region
to educate the public, veterinarians, and producers about the risks of
ASF and how they can help stop the spread of the virus.
The Secretary, using his emergency transfer authority under the
Animal Health Protection Act, transferred $500 million from the
Commodity Credit Corporation for these and other enhanced ASF
prevention and response activities. APHIS has used that funding to
strengthen its response activities and has placed teams of
veterinarians and animal health officials in the region. APHIS
officials are working closely with the Dominican Republic, providing
technical and financial assistance for a plan to control the disease in
the country, thereby strengthening the animal health security of our
domestic producers. APHIS is also working closely with the Dominican
Republic to modernize and support their animal health laboratory
capabilities, ensuring effective and proactive surveillance testing is
available in the region. In Haiti, APHIS is focused on providing
supplies and remote technical laboratory support to agricultural
officials and is working with them on long-range plans, although the
political instability of that country presents an ongoing challenge. We
will continue to work with animal health officials in the region in
further developing those plans and do everything we can to keep this
high consequence disease out of the country.
Domestically, we have built upon our existing system of safeguards
to strengthen our defenses here. We have trained 65 additional detector
dog teams who work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection at key
commercial seaports and airports. We have ramped up testing capacity at
our National Animal Health Laboratory Network. We also developed an
extensive public outreach campaign, including advertising and signage
at the largest international airports and digital advertising related
to searches and other requests for information about international
travel. We have also specifically geared information campaigns towards
veterinarians and producers, educating them about ASF and what the
signs of it are so that they can enhance our surveillance for the
disease.
Animal Disease Traceability
Earlier this year, we issued a proposed rule that would update our
animal disease traceability regulations. The rule would require
electronic identification for interstate movement of certain cattle and
bison, which would strengthen the nation's ability to quickly respond
to significant animal disease outbreaks. Major animal disease outbreaks
hurt our ranchers and farmers and all those who support them along the
supply chain, threaten our food security, and impact our ability to
trade America's high-quality food products around the world. Rapid
traceability in a disease outbreak could help ranchers and farmers get
back to selling their products more quickly; limit how long farms are
quarantined; and keep more animals from getting sick.
We recently extended the comment period for that proposed rule and
are accepting comments through April 19. We have received over 1,000
comments already, and I can assure you that we will carefully review
those and use that information to determine our next steps on this
important initiative.
The Agricultural Quarantine Inspection Program
Before I conclude, I'd be remiss if I didn't note our appreciation
for what this Committee and the Appropriations Committees have done to
help shore up funding for the Agricultural Quarantine Inspection (AQI)
program over the last few years. AQI is the backbone of our efforts to
protect plant and animal health. With our frontline partners at U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the program provides the series of
overlapping safeguards that ensure commodities, cargo, and passengers
entering the country do not harbor harmful pests or diseases. Whether
from the APHIS scientific, technical, and regulatory officials deciding
what can be imported safely under what conditions and from where, CBP's
inspectors looking through cargo, or the APHIS-trained beagle brigade
sniffing out passenger baggage and cargo for meat and other
agricultural products, the systems we have in place protect U.S.
agricultural resources.
During the pandemic, owing to changes in travel patterns, the user-
fee funded program faced shortfalls that could have led to widespread
furloughs curtailing our ability to conduct these inspections and
scientific and technical work. Thankfully, Congress stepped in, giving
the program necessary funding to fill the gap, and we are back on
strong footing.
Nevertheless, it has been many years since those user fees were
last adjusted and changes in transportation and conveyance methods and
sizes have rendered those fees outdated. We are in the process of
developing an updated fee schedule, which is going through the
rulemaking process. While we are still early in this process, we will
certainly keep this Subcommittee informed of our progress.
Conclusion
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to highlight these important
programs for you today. I know we are in the midst of another farm bill
cycle. The enhanced tools that Congress gave us in the 2018 Farm Bill
have had very positive outcomes for our animal health programs and we
are certain that the Subcommittee's work on the next farm bill will
continue the critical work of safeguarding animal health. We stand
ready to support you as you develop this important legislation and
appreciate your understanding that ``An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure.''
Thank you for inviting me to join you today. I'm happy to answer
your questions.
The Chairman. Thank you for your important testimony this
morning.
At this time, Members will be recognized for questions in
order of seniority, alternating between Majority and Minority
Members and in order of arrival for those who joined us after
this hearing convened. You will be recognized for 5 minutes
each in order to allow us to get as many questions in as
possible.
First, I will recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Under Secretary Moffitt, as I mentioned in my opening
statement, the last farm bill included historic investments in
animal health programs, including the National Animal Health
Laboratory Network, the National Animal Disease Preparedness
and Response Program, and the National Animal Vaccine and
Veterinary Countermeasures Bank, not to mention the work to
solidify the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility that is
currently being constructed and is almost completed in the big
1st District of Kansas.
Can you talk about how these farm bill programs are used to
complement other programs and funding streams to bolster APHIS'
ability to carry out one of its core missions, protecting the
health of the U.S. animal population?
Ms. Moffitt. Chairman Mann, thank you so much for that
question. As I outlined in the testimony and as you just talked
about, the three different programs interlocking together are
very important. I come from production agriculture myself, and
the importance of a farmer to be able to have many different
tools is similar to our own APHIS animal disease preparedness
response, as well, to be able to have funding, to be able to do
tabletop exercises, other exercises so that we are ready and
prepared to be able to respond to animal disease outbreaks, as
well as, of course, the lab network--the extensive lab network
throughout the country, and then of course the insurance policy
through the vaccine bank. All of these things are important.
And your question about how we supplement that with the
existing resources, annual appropriations that APHIS and USDA
received, writ large, is a very important part of that. We have
an incredible team at APHIS that Chairman Thompson mentioned,
and a lot of that funding comes through annual appropriations.
The lab network in fact is also funded through annual
appropriations as well.
And then finally, I will just emphasize when and should we
have an animal disease outbreak like high-path AI, the
importance of being able to use CCC funding to be able to
manage that outbreak is important as well.
The Chairman. Thank you. As we work to reauthorize these
programs through the next farm bill, is there anything in
particular that you would advise that this Committee consider?
Ms. Moffitt. I think one thing that is really important
about the funding and the authority that was provided through
those three different programs in the 2018 Farm Bill is the
flexibility that is allowed there so that our staff and our
team of animal health responders have that flexibility. I think
that is such an important part.
Of course, we will continue to work through the lab
network. We will continue to work in all of the different
pieces of that. We also know that we have over 800 APHIS staff
who have been deployed at least once in a 6 week period many
multiple times, so building up our workforce is a very
important part of that as well.
The Chairman. Yes, I agree. Thank you. On January 19, 2023,
APHIS proposed a rule that would require electronic
identification, or EID, ear tags for purposes of animal disease
traceability and as a requisite for official interstate
movement of certain cattle and bison. While I understand the
goals here will obviously come with added cost to producers in
my district in Kansas and across the country, in the past,
APHIS has provided free EID tags and financial assistance for
related infrastructure to prepare for compliance efforts with
such a regulation. So I am curious, what are the Department's
plans for mitigating the cost to producers and other entities
like sale barns for compliance with this rule, should it become
final?
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing
the work that APHIS has done in the past in providing animal
ear tags. Over 19 million ear tags have been distributed
already by APHIS. This rule right now is in draft form. I think
we have received over 1,000 public comments so far, and the
rule closes tomorrow, and so we are still accepting public
comments. We will take those public comments as we will look
at, as the team at APHIS looks at drafting the final rule and
taking into consideration impacts and opportunities for small
producers, large producers, and everyone in between.
Should there be funding allowed and funding available, we
can continue to look at ways that we can distribute additional
ear tags. We are also working with sale barns and auction barns
and distributing and handing out readers as well so that when
animals come to auction, there is an ability to be able to
identify them as well.
The Chairman. Yes, thank you. We ought to remember what
these regulations mean to producers, so I appreciate your
comment.
One last question, I am also closely monitoring the Food
and Drug Administration's proposed changes to long-standing
labeling requirements for re-implanting of shorter-acting
growth implants for cattle. While I understand this is not a
USDA issue, I do want to mention that USDA should be at the
table when FDA is making decisions like these that would
abruptly stop a common practice that could adversely impact the
industry. How is USDA working with FDA on these proposed
changes?
Ms. Moffitt. Well, thank you for that question. USDA
continuously works with FDA on a myriad of different issues
where we share common ground, we share common work, and we
would be happy to work with FDA on working through this issue
as well so that the voices of agriculture and the perspective
that USDA can bring are a part of the decision for FDA.
The Chairman. Thank you. Yes, please do as this regulation
will certainly negatively impact our cattle producers and, at
the end, will increase the cost of our food supply at a time of
rising inflation, so thank you.
With that, I now recognize the Ranking Member, the
gentleman from California, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Costa. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Before I get into my questions, I want to make a couple of
observations. We talked about the three programs that we
initiated in the last farm bill, the vaccine bank, the National
Animal Preparedness Response Program, and the Animal Health
Laboratory Network. But I want to note that, frankly, these
programs are only as effective as the people that enact them.
An effective response is dependent upon a highly trained
veterinarian and support staff who can work with stakeholders
to contain the certain outbreaks. We have a shortage of
veterinarians across the country. We need to do and take into
consideration I think in the farm bill a strong pipeline of the
veterinarian professionals so that we can continue to support
the efforts of APHIS, which is so important that we have and
maintain a trained staff to address outbreaks.
And so the farm bill of course does a host of things to
ensure, as I said earlier, maintaining food security and that
food security is a national issue. We just need to remember, I
believe, that the past year, the cost of an outbreak will far
exceed the cost of supporting disease prevention programs.
Remember that. The cost of an outbreak far exceeds the cost of
these prevention programs.
With that said, Secretary Moffitt, looking at the current
response, you partially answered that question in answer to the
Chairman's question in terms of what improvements you think
need to be made to optimize future outbreaks. And is there the
authority with APHIS that would provide a more effective
response? And because of your previous experience not just as a
farmer, producer in California's Department of Food and
Agriculture, how do you think we can more closely coordinate
the efforts between state and Federal efforts to manage these
diseases?
Ms. Moffitt. Well, thank you for that question. And, I
think there are a few things. So, first, as you recognize,
coming from the California Department of Food and Agriculture,
in fact in I think early 2020 before the pandemic, thanks to
funding from NADPRP and through the partnership that the state
and Federal Government really strongly have in collaboration,
we did a tabletop exercise should there be a foot-and-mouth
disease outbreak in the dairy industry in California. So that
funding, I know firsthand how important it can be for states in
readiness and preparedness, as well as of course with industry
partners and university and land-grant partners as well.
Mr. Costa. That partnership is critical.
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, it is.
Mr. Costa. And we need to build on it. Our trading partners
often use non-tariff barriers to deal with their internal
politics in terms of our ability to trade. And I am wondering
if you have developed a strategy toward maintaining our trade
efforts when we have efforts to vaccinate, especially in light
of the high-path impacts and the potential and concerns about
them. And of course, we have dealt with depopulation, as you
well know.
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, so your question relates as we are
looking at all different tools in the tool chest, they are very
important. And you asked about the different mechanisms that we
have. And Dr. Naugle can talk a little bit about some of the
lessons that we are learning in the current outbreak and how we
are applying that.
But I will just quickly answer the vaccine question. It is
very important as we consider vaccine, first off, we are many,
many, many months, in fact, 18 to 24 months down the road. ARS
is not really doing research trials at this point. But, it is
important that as we look at and evaluate a potential for a
vaccine, we are looking at things like human health, animal
health, trade impacts, and also implementation of the vaccine
strategy. So there are many things that we would be factoring
and weighing----
Mr. Costa. Yes, my time is expiring here. Doctor, quickly,
how do our trading partners look at our ability to maintain
high standards to contain any health impacts? Could you comment
quickly?
Dr. Naugle. Yes, I mean, our trade partners, we are working
actively with many different trade partners around the world on
a regionalization approach so that we have in place--and this
is something we developed since the 2015 outbreak--strong
regionalization approach for both high-path AI, as well as we
are developing it for African swine fever.
Mr. Costa. And our efforts to improve diagnostic and
surveillance technology comes hand-in-hand with it, right?
Dr. Naugle. Absolutely. Absolutely. If we know where the
disease is----
Mr. Costa. How are we doing there?
Dr. Naugle.--we can keep it--sir?
Mr. Costa. Well, my time has expired. I was asking how are
we doing there to improve diagnostic and surveillance
technology.
Dr. Naugle. How will we improve it? We will constantly
improve it. We are working with our labs network around the
country. Rapid detection and diagnostic technology is really
important, and some of the funding for the lab network has also
been for rapid diagnostic testing as well.
Mr. Costa. Thank you.
The Chairman. Great. The chair recognizes the gentleman
from Alabama and my good friend, Congressman Moore, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Over the Easter break I had some hearings with our ag--we
call them listening sessions in Alabama. And one of the things
that I noticed, is that feral hogs are starting to be an issue.
And I can remember growing up we had a military base, Fort
Rucker, they were getting kind of in the farmers' land now, but
it seemed like all over the district, in the 2nd Congressional
District, we have these questions about feral hogs. And I was
really glad we had the pilot program in 2018 before I got here
that my colleagues put in. But if you don't mind, Under
Secretary or Dr. Naugle, if you all could kind of elaborate on
some of the things that are going on for the feral swine, the
control process and what the outlook is, if we have any
optimistic predictions for the future.
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, thank you for recognizing the pilot
program. That is a partnership with NRCS and APHIS together,
which I think is a really unique opportunity in a pilot to
really come together and take a whole-of-USDA approach,
improved access to landowners. We have worked with over 6,000
landowners in the country through this pilot program and
partnered on over 8 million acres of land to work on removing
and eradicating feral hogs. This is complementary to annual
appropriations that APHIS continues to receive and has received
since 2014. We have been successful today in successfully
eradicating feral hogs from seven states, and we are close to
four more additional states.
Mr. Moore. I hope Alabama is on one of those lists.
What are you guys seeing that you feel good about in the
program as far as eradication? I understand there are some
medications, there are some treatments they are finding that
seem to be working. Is that the case, Dr. Naugle? Is that what
you are seeing?
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, Dr. Naugle?
Dr. Naugle. Yes, our Wildlife Services Unit uses a variety
of complementary tools to be able to eradicate those hogs.
Mr. Moore. Thank you. Now, onto the next question I got a
lot of concern about last week was chronic wasting disease, and
how it's wreaked havoc on deer populations across the country.
I was happy for the passage of the Chronic Wasting Disease
Research and Management Act last Congress, which authorized
additional annual funding to be divided equally between CWD
research and state and Tribal CWD management efforts. Under
Secretary Moffitt and Dr. Naugle, can you talk about APHIS'
ongoing work to manage CWD and the promising developments on
that front as well?
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, I will kick it off and pass it on to Dr.
Naugle. Yes, as you mentioned, chronic wasting disease is
absolutely devastating in so many states. Chairman Thompson
also mentioned that as well. We were pleased that we were able
to, thanks again to funding that we have received through
Congress, be able to allocate another $12 million toward that
combination of research and state partnerships because that is
such an important thing, the mix of both understanding, as well
as applying our work together.
And I will pass it to Dr. Naugle.
Dr. Naugle. Yes, I will extend a little bit on Under
Secretary Moffitt's comment about the funding we have provided
to states, Tribes, and universities. In 2022, we provided $9.5
million to those states, Tribes, universities for these
cooperative agreements that help them control CWD not only in
farm-cervid populations but wild-cervid populations as well,
and we just announced last week the additional $12 million. I
am very excited about that.
Within APHIS, we really have two approaches. On the
wildlife side, our Wildlife Services, again, conducts research
and supports wildlife management activities with regard to CWD,
and on the Farm Service side we do have our voluntary herd
certification program, of which 28 states participate in.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Dr. Naugle.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Next, I now recognize the gentlewoman from Connecticut for
5 minutes.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. Animal diseases can be devastating
to any farm but especially to the small family farms that
represent the majority of operations in the United States.
Under Secretary Moffitt, in your testimony you highlight the
gap between the minority of large, wealthy farms and the
majority of small, struggling farms. The farms in Connecticut's
5th District represent this fact. You have been there, so you
know what it looks like. Ninety-four percent of them are family
farms, and 92 percent have less than $100,000 in sales value.
For example, producers in my district may rely on fewer than
two dozen dairy cows for their livelihood, and any diseases
could do irreparable damage to their way of life.
Under Secretary Moffitt, can you describe how the Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Services disseminates information
to the smallest and most vulnerable producers? And
additionally, to what extent does your agency work directly
with farmers to improve biosecurity and develop best practices?
Ms. Moffitt. Congresswoman Hayes, thank you so much for
that question. And working with and making sure that we are
prioritizing farmers of all sizes, of all backgrounds who are
working in different fields and different value-add is very
important and is a priority. As you probably have heard in the
Secretary's testimony as well, making sure that we are
supporting the many and all of the farmers, so thank you for
asking that question.
As far as outreach and how are we reaching out through our
different APHIS programs, we have a couple different programs,
actually, several different programs but a couple that I will
highlight, and Dr. Naugle can add some more as well. So we have
things like the Defend the Flock Program, which is really about
partnering and disseminating information about signs, symptoms
of highly-pathogenic avian influenza, and then also our
partnership with states as we work on stamping out the disease
and making sure that producers have access to indemnity
payments and that all producers know of the available resources
that we have.
On African swine fever, it is the same thing. We have a
Protect Our Pigs Campaign. These campaigns are very much in
partnership with industry, with states, with Cooperative
Extension, who I know are such important tools and partners for
particularly small producers but producers of all sizes. So
these are very important as we get information out and
disseminated and so that everyone, even backyard farmers to
small farmers to larger farmers, have access to this really
critical, important information.
Dr. Naugle?
Dr. Naugle. And I would just echo some of Under Secretary
Moffitt's comments. We have a nationally distributed workforce
in APHIS veterinary services, and you will often see our
employees at local meetings with livestock producers, on the
farm with producers, small families, whether they are helping
them to work through a regulatory problem, just doing a check-
in and providing education, that is key.
I would also add that, again, the work through NADPRP, the
National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program, many
of the projects that we have funded have worked and focused on
outreach with some of the particular producer groups that you
described, right, because we recognize that we need to reach
out to those producers maybe in a different way than some of
our big national communication programs like Defend the Flock
or Protect Our Pigs.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. I think we have to be intentional
about making sure this information reaches the smallest of
farmers so that our work can really be done well.
You also mentioned, Under Secretary, the need for public-
sector animal health professionals and veterinarians.
Connecticut is home to 20 agricultural science and technology
education programs such as the one at Shepaug Valley School in
Washington, Connecticut. Give me 2 minutes and I am going to
get to education somehow. These programs provide high school
students with diverse science case working career exposure in
agricultural management, mechanics, biotechnology, animal
science, and more.
Under Secretary Moffitt, very quickly, can education
programs targeted at high schoolers help alleviate workforce
shortages in the animal health sector? And are you aware of any
strategies that APHIS and USDA will use to support agricultural
science and technology education programs?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you so much for that question, and
absolutely, those programs that you described are such an
important part of building our workforce, bringing in students
in this talent pipeline I think is so important. At APHIS we
have the AgDiscovery Program that is actively working with high
schoolers, middle schoolers to build that pipeline and for
youth who are interested in sciences, interested in agriculture
to discover through this AgDiscovery Program different possible
careers so that hopefully they come and want to work at USDA or
in agriculture, writ large.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. I will just close by saying I am so
incredibly proud of Shepaug Valley High School and their
agriscience program in my district, and I am going to put my
neck out there and extend an invitation to you to visit at any
time.
My time has expired. I feel bad, but I do apologize in
advance. I have to go to another hearing. Thank you for your
time today.
The Chairman. Thank you. Next, I now recognize the
gentleman from Wisconsin for 5 minutes.
Mr. Van Orden. Thank you very much for coming. I just have
a few questions for you, Madam Under Secretary.
I am particularly concerned about diseases being introduced
to our herds and flocks around the country. It has a
devastating economic impact on agriculture. One of the things I
would like to ask about is African swine flu. Are we importing
hogs from Africa?
Ms. Moffitt. I can have Dr. Naugle talk a little bit more
about some of the interlocking and the things that we are doing
to make sure that we keep African swine fever out of the
country. African swine fever is unfortunately in many countries
and particularly close to us is in the Dominican Republic and
Haiti as well.
Mr. Van Orden. In Puerto Rico, right.
Ms. Moffitt. I will pass it to Dr. Naugle to talk about the
different things, but important is the import controls that we
have that Dr. Naugle can talk about.
Mr. Van Orden. Right. So I am just going to cut you off
here. I know the answer. I am asking this. Are we importing
pork into this country from anywhere? That is just an example
because the African swine fever--are we importing pork into the
United States?
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, we import pork and pork products into the
United States.
Mr. Van Orden. Okay. Are we importing poultry into the
United States?
Ms. Moffitt. Yes.
Mr. Van Orden. Okay.
Ms. Moffitt. We import poultry and poultry products into
the United States.
Mr. Van Orden. All right. So I understand this. So can you
maybe explain to me why we are importing pork into the United
States and poultry into the United States when the American
farmer is capable of producing these in nearly unlimited
capacity if they have the appropriate types of regulatory
controls established by the Government?
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, so international trade that we enjoy goes
two-ways, and so there are some types of product that are
important that we can import here for consumer preferences.
Mr. Van Orden. Yes.
Ms. Moffitt. But what is very important, as we are
importing and as we have protocols in place for importing
product is that we are making sure that the product that is
coming in is free from disease and not introducing a foreign
animal disease or a food safety risk to any of our industry and
people in the country.
Mr. Van Orden. I understand. So I am asking you, do you
think that potentially some of the policies that have been put
in place are restricting our ability to produce pork and
poultry here, including exporting them? Because I am having a
really hard time understanding why we are importing--pretty
soon, we are going to be a net importer for agriculture, and
from my perspective, a lot of that is due to some very
restrictive policies that I would like to see us open them up a
little bit so we could produce pork and poultry and serve it
around the world as opposed to potentially importing these
animals into the country that introduce these horrible diseases
into our flocks and our herds?
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, I think what is really important is that
we are working and actively working on supporting and
protecting our own industry so our own industry can continue to
grow and thrive to produce food for our domestic consumers, as
well as abroad.
Mr. Van Orden. Yes.
Ms. Moffitt. And I would like Dr. Naugle to talk about just
some of the things that we have in place so that when product
is becoming imported, that we aren't introducing or we are
reducing the risk of introducing any foreign animal diseases.
Mr. Van Orden. Please do, Doctor.
Dr. Naugle. Yes, thank you. My pleasure. So within APHIS,
we have a group that just focuses on regionalization services,
and so whenever a country requests to import any kind of animal
or animal product into the United States, we begin an extensive
and a quite long process of evaluating their veterinary
infrastructure, the disease status of various different
diseases in their country, as well as what mitigations they
have in place to prevent future outbreaks or respond should
those outbreaks occur. After that process occurs, we do
multiple site visits. We do formal risk assessments, all of
that prior to publishing a proposed rule that would allow for
public comment for people to let us know what they think about
whether we would recognize certain countries to allow for trade
or not.
Mr. Van Orden. Great. Thank you, Doctor. I am sorry, but my
time is going to expire here real quick.
Dr. Naugle. I understand.
Mr. Van Orden. Madam Under Secretary, I would like to put
on your marketing hat real quick. We go to the store, we can
buy skim milk, we can buy one percent milk, and we can buy two
percent milk. Do you know what the fat content of whole milk
is?
Ms. Moffitt. I don't. I want to say it is somewhere around
six percent.
Mr. Van Orden. It is not. It is 3\1/2\ percent. That is the
problem.
Ms. Moffitt. Three and a half.
Mr. Van Orden. So people think they get skim milk, one
percent, two percent, and they think they are drinking butter
when they have whole milk. So I am going to ask you, I would
like to get with your staff, we have to be able to change this
because we are prohibited from marketing whole milk as 3\1/2\
percent milk, so people think they are getting six percent or
ten percent or 15 percent, and they believe that it is
unhealthy when in fact it is the most healthy form of milk. So
I am going to ask you to commit to getting with me and my staff
to see if we can--you put your marketing hat on and we can get
this changed so that the American consumer understands exactly
what they are consuming.
Ms. Moffitt. I will absolutely be happy to have our staff
and your staff connect.
Mr. Van Orden. Well, thank you, Madam Under Secretary and
Doctor. I appreciate it. With that, I yield back.
The Chairman. I now recognize the gentlewoman from Colorado
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Caraveo. Thank you, Chairman Mann, and to Ranking
Member Costa, and thank you for hosting the hearing this
morning.
Under Secretary Moffitt and Dr. Naugle, thank you for
taking the time to be here to provide your testimony. These
issues are all very important to me. One of the counties that I
represent is Weld County, Colorado, which is a leading producer
of beef, cattle, and dairy, and I am glad that animal health is
the focus of our first Subcommittee hearing. I do want to
reiterate the comments that Chairman Mann said about the ear
tag program and trying to make that cost as small to the
producers. I know that that is something that has been brought
up on my ag listening tours.
But speaking about diseases and wildlife and feral animals,
they increasingly pose risks to humans and agricultural health
and our economy, as evidenced by the recent outbreaks that have
been spoken about with highly-pathogenic avian influenza in the
U.S. and African swine fever in the Caribbean. Generally, what
is the USDA currently doing to assess disease spillover from
wildlife, enhance wildlife disease surveillance, and develop
cost-effective mitigation efforts that can be deployed at scale
in the event of an outbreak?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you so much for that question. And I
will pass it on to Dr. Naugle to answer more fully, but I just
want to highlight, of course, as you well know from Colorado,
the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins,
Colorado, and the importance of that program is a key part of
our wildlife research program. That program is doing important
surveillance on 31 different diseases in wildlife. And the work
on monitoring wild birds particularly was a key early indicator
for us in our highly-pathogenic avian influenza response.
So I will pass it to Dr. Naugle for further answer.
Dr. Naugle. Great. Thanks for this question. This is an
area that I think all of us in animal agriculture really
understand the risk at that wildlife-livestock interface. And I
think if you look at historically some of the diseases that we
have had control programs for in the United States like
tuberculosis, brucellosis, we know that both of those have a
wildlife component in them, right?
So to specifically answer your question, with many of our
disease programs, we do conduct surveillance in different
wildlife species surrounding herds that might be infected with
diseases that we know can affect wildlife like TB. We know we
have the greater Yellowstone area with brucellosis, and we work
very hard to implement mitigations there so we don't get
brucellosis in cattle in the greater Yellowstone area.
Additionally, the feral swine program that we talked about
earlier, surveillance is conducted on those swine to help us
look at things like swine brucellosis, pseudo-rabies, as well
as monitor for the potential for ASF or CSF. So we really look
at our disease control comprehensively and consider both
wildlife and livestock.
Ms. Caraveo. Are there resources needed to replace the
existing funds that came from the American Rescue Plan Act of
2021 (Pub. L. 117-2) that were dedicated to addressing some of
these concerns and efforts?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you for highlighting the funding that
was received through the American Rescue Plan. We are working
actively on implementing that funding. At this point, the
funding has been able to identify different research projects
and implementation for the interface of COVID-19 and animals
and between animals and then also between animals and human
health. So that funding has been important, and we have
additional funds through that that we are working on developing
and ensuring that funding is put to good use as well.
Ms. Caraveo. Perfect. Thank you both so much, and I yield
back my time.
The Chairman. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Tennessee for 5 minutes.
Mr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think you both have been working around this question
that I am going to ask you just now, but just for further
clarifications, I will ask it maybe a little different way.
What steps is the USDA taking to work with outside stakeholders
such as State Departments of Ag, animal health officials,
wildlife experts, to inform the public, especially those with
backyard flocks, about biosecurity and resources on what
symptoms to look for to help mitigate the spread of avian
influenza?
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, there are a lot of resources that APHIS
has been putting into play, and Dr. Naugle can talk about some
of them specifically. I mentioned the defend the flock program.
That is an important one. The partnerships you identified with
states, with industry, with cooperative extension, with other
nonprofits and Tribal organizations. All of those different
layers of partnerships are very important so that we are
reaching different constituents who are getting information
from different information sources.
But I will pass it to Dr. Naugle.
Dr. Naugle. Yes, thank you. It is really a whole-of-
industry response with regard to outreach and education, right?
In addition to some of the things previously mentioned, we do
provide cooperative agreement funding directly to states that
are impacted by HPAI to assist with their response, as well as
education and outreach with those local producers.
Mr. DesJarlais. Okay.
Ms. Moffitt. I will just add on, my daughter, until we
moved to D.C., was a 4-H member, and we would get information
through the 4-H network, so there are lots of different avenues
and wonderful avenues to get that information.
Mr. DesJarlais. Okay. Thank you. Under Secretary, is there
an end in sight to the current high-path outbreak? And if the
disease is here to stay, how does that alter APHIS' approach to
dealing with the disease moving forward?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you so much for that question,
Representative. That is an important question, one that I don't
have an answer to. I wish I had a crystal ball to really know.
But I think what is very important--and I will pass it to Dr.
Naugle to talk about this because she so clearly identified it
last week in a meeting that we had with industry--is as we are
working--just like we took lessons learned from the 2015
outbreak, we are already incorporating lessons learned in this
2022-2023 outbreak, and that includes things like looking at
and evaluating biosecurity and what more can we do on
biosecurity because we know that is the one most effective
things in reducing lateral spread, but also how we are looking
at and reducing the attractiveness of wild birds because we
know the virus load is very strong in the wild bird population,
and we want to reduce the introduction from wild birds.
Dr. Naugle. Thank you. Additionally, I will add that we
also really are working at the farm level to help do
biosecurity assessments so producers can go through their
facilities and identify if there is opportunity for wild birds
to get in there and potentially infect their flocks. So I think
that is a really important step for us.
I think you are leading toward the vaccination question,
and so to that regard, we are currently behind the scenes
having conversations with international trading partners. Dr.
Sifford goes to the World Organisation for Animal Health in
May, and HPAI will be a major topic at that meeting, and she
will discuss with her counterparts across the world if we need
to look at vaccination differently. Right now, our partners at
Agricultural Research Service are investigating different
strains of potential vaccine for possible licensure, and
internally, we are determining plans for how we might implement
a vaccine strategy.
However, right now, today, we believe strongly that our
response has been effective. Whenever we have identified HPAI
in a case in domestic poultry, we have effectively stamped it
out. And due to the trade consequences of vaccine at this
point, we are planning for the future but continuing on the
current path. Thank you.
Mr. DesJarlais. Okay. And by reading my mind and answering
my last question, I can yield back 47 seconds.
The Chairman. Thank you. I now recognize the gentlewoman
from Maine for 5 minutes.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for holding this hearing. Nice to see you, Under Secretary.
Thank you for being with us. And thank you, Dr. Naugle, for
participating as well.
I am going to take a slightly different turn and talk about
aquaculture. Maine aquaculture is about an $85-$100 million a
year business, represents about 25 different species of
finfish, shellfish, sea vegetables, and is about 700 jobs in
our state. So aquatic animal health is very important to us.
APHIS has a National Aquaculture Health Plan and Standards,
which was released in 2021, which supports aquatic livestock
health. Could you give me a little bit of an update about the
work you are doing to protect aquatic animal health, and what
should we be doing in the farm bill to future your efforts?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you, Representative Pingree, for that
question. I am going to pass it to Dr. Naugle to talk about it
but just wanted to highlight that the standards are out there.
We are working with industry and states on implementing it. And
Dr. Naugle can talk more about that.
Dr. Naugle. Yes, thank you. The aquaculture industry is
really an exciting industry, right? It is really growing, and
we are really happy to be supporting producers at the
forefront.
First, we did receive additional funding in the omnibus for
Fiscal Year 2023, and we are using that to further develop we
are calling the CAHPS, which is the Comprehensive Aquaculture
Health Program Standards, and what that allows us to do is it
develops an approach where aquaculture producers address things
like biosecurity, surveillance, other types of management
practices that support aquatic health and allow them to be
competitive both interstate trade, as well as potentially
international trade. We are very excited about that.
With that money, we also plan to provide about $1 million
in cooperative agreements with laboratories to help us further
with the laboratory capacity with regard to aquatic diseases,
which is something we haven't really focused on much in the
past.
And then finally, we continue to do risk assessments and
pathway assessments to look at certain high-consequence
diseases of aquatic species to determine if any additional
actions need to be taken with regard to movement of animals.
Ms. Pingree. Great. Well, thank you for that work, and I am
glad to see you are putting the new funding to work, and we
will look forward to working with you on that.
Back to the avian influenza, which I know is on everyone's
mind, I mean, even though we were once a huge poultry-producing
state, we are now much more like of a small-, medium-size,
backyard flocks. And unfortunately, in a backyard flock you
have more opportunities for making that connection with
wildlife. And I know you have been talking quite a bit about
that. Well, birds of course, but also in Maine we had avian
influenza detected in our harbor seals, and so because we have
a lot of saltwater farming, a lot of coastal farming, that is
something we are concerned about, too.
So can you just talk a little bit about the interfacing you
are doing with backyard flocks? And I know you have talked a
little bit about how you try to control it in wildlife, but
just some of those issues, how you are educating farmers about
how to watch for it to make sure we are not spreading it. I
know we have had some outbreaks in Maine with backyard flocks.
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, certainly, how to watch for it and the
education and the work that we are doing with farmers, backyard
farmers, with household farmers, with industry at large I think
it is such an important part. Actually--and I just learned last
week--the first case that we found that was detected in Indiana
was because of education campaigns that APHIS had done on how
to understand and detect symptoms that birds might be
exhibiting when having high-path avian influenza.
So it just shows the success of the program, and I think
that that is important, and making sure, as I mentioned before,
that we are working with multiple different partners who are
reaching different audiences I think is a very important part.
I know the information that I used to get on my farm is
different even from the information that a neighboring farmer
would get, and so that is an important part.
Identifying and then also knowing what to do when you do
identify that there are symptoms, calling a local vet, calling
cooperative extension, calling the state animal health
official, and how to be able to respond to that. And then of
course also bringing in the state officials who might also
invite APHIS to join as well, I think all of those interlocking
efforts are very important.
Dr. Naugle, anything additional?
Ms. Pingree. Great. Well, I yield back, but thank you very
much for being with us today and the work you are doing.
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you, Representative.
The Chairman. I now recognize the gentleman from Nebraska
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Under
Secretary Moffitt and Dr. Naugle, for being here.
One of the things I am very proud of in the last farm bill,
we were able to put in the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine bank.
If you already talked about this, I apologize. I have multiple
hearings going on simultaneously right now. Could you give us
the status of the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine bank? Is it
fully operational in your mind, or what else do we need to be
doing?
Ms. Moffitt. I will kick it off, and Dr. Naugle can talk
more fully about this. The foot-and-mouth vaccine bank, thanks
to the 2018 Farm Bill, we have been able to invest $52 million
in the vaccine bank as a whole, and that has been very
important. And Dr. Naugle can talk about some of the practices
that we have employed so that we make sure that we have--as we
talk about the vaccine bank, it is an important insurance
policy. First and foremost is biosecurity, and our work,
together with industry in stamping out the disease, but to have
that vaccine bank as an insurance policy is such an important
part.
Dr. Naugle?
Dr. Naugle. Yes, thanks. I will share some additional
detail there. So right now, within the National Animal Vaccine
and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank, we have access to vaccine
antigen concentrate for foot-and-mouth disease. We have access
to finished vaccine for classical swine fever, and we also
recently purchased diagnostic test kits for both FMD and ASF,
right? So the countermeasures in the vaccine bank is more than
just FMD, right?
Mr. Bacon. Okay.
Dr. Naugle. It is much more comprehensive.
As far as the number of doses that we have in the bank, our
goal is to be able to have somewhere between ten to 25 million
doses per each strain of FMD that we bank, and we have, I
believe, ten strains that we are currently banking antigen
against. That goal of 25 million doses per year is a minimum
goal, right? It wouldn't necessarily cover everything in the
event of an FMD outbreak, but it would allow us to use the
vaccine initially should it be needed.
The last thing I will say is the determination of what
vaccines we use, the strains that we bank against are made by a
subject matter expert panel that kind of help us decide based
on the epidemiology and the geography of those diseases which
are the highest risk.
Mr. Bacon. So would you consider yourselves fully
operational with the vaccine bank, or is there more work to do
to get----
Dr. Naugle. There is always more work to do, sir, always
more work to do.
Mr. Bacon. Okay. So there is always more work to do, but
would you consider yourself fully operational at this point?
Dr. Naugle. Yes. If we needed to deploy vaccine tomorrow,
we would----
Mr. Bacon. Okay. Not----
Dr. Naugle.--have access to FMD and CSF vaccine tomorrow.
Mr. Bacon. The reason I ask that question, a couple years
ago they said, well, we are minimally operational. We have more
work to do, so I think we are probably at a--now you are just
at a sustainment----
Dr. Naugle. Oh, for sure.
Mr. Bacon. Yes, you are at sustainment level.
Dr. Naugle. Absolutely. Yes.
Mr. Bacon. Okay.
Dr. Naugle. I am sorry. I misunderstood that.
Mr. Bacon. That is all right. Well, I probably didn't ask
the question quite right either.
Well, first of all, I want to thank the Nebraska cattlemen
and also the Nebraska pork industry because they came to me
back in 2017, said this was a top priority, and we were able to
work hard--initially, I was told it was too early, and that we
needed more research to get there, but I am so proud that we
have been able to achieve this huge milestone.
Secretary Vilsack said you are making pretty good progress
on the African swine fever vaccine. Can you just give our
citizens some update where we are at?
Ms. Moffitt. Yes, I had the opportunity to travel to
Vietnam where ARS, in partnership with the Vietnamese
Government, is working on field trials as we speak on African
swine fever vaccine trials for a handful of different vaccine
strains, and I think that is making very good progress. Just
like with the high-path avian influenza vaccine that Dr. Naugle
talked about, as we look toward and work on what that looks
like and once it gets developed and we have a plan in place on
how it would be able to be implemented, there are many other
factors that we would be considering. And Dr. Naugle can expand
on this more, but certainly the human factors, animal health
factors, what is the efficacy of the vaccine, and how would we
maintain and look at and evaluate trade in all of those as well
as we distribute.
Mr. Bacon. When you see what it did to the Chinese pork
industry, it just devastated it, so I am glad we are ahead of
the game here on some preventative measures and some
reactionary measures if it happens.
One last question, is your level of research dollars or
appropriations adequate to do what you need to do?
Ms. Moffitt. That is a very good question, Representative,
and I think, across the board we do what we can with the
research funds that we have, and I know Dr. Jacobs-Young has
been before the Senate to talk about the level of research
dollars we have and the advancement that we are doing in
research. I think what is really important is the partnership
that we have with industry, the partnership that we have with
the universities and land-grant universities to be able to
maximize the dollars that we have. But, as always, in
everything that we do, we can always do more with more funding.
Mr. Bacon. With that, I yield back. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you. The chair recognizes the gentleman
from North Carolina, Congressman Davis, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Davis of North Carolina. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, and thank you so much for being here to ensure
our producers have consistent, predictable USDA guidelines on
animal disease and prevention.
The hog and poultry industries are powerful economic
drivers in agriculture, particularly in eastern North Carolina.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service just announced
more than $15 million for 60 projects, including one at North
Carolina State University, designed to extend a between-farm
African swine fever transmission model to estimate the
necessary number of sample collectors in the highly swine-dense
region.
My question, Under Secretary, can you give me a timeline
based on previously awarded funding for the rollout of the
National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program
grants?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you for that question, and thank you,
Congressman Davis, for highlighting one of the projects that
just recently received funding. It is exciting as I look at the
funding that we do have and that we are able to invest in
projects, just the breadth and diversity of the projects that
are funded, how those projects--the determination of projects
is funded through. Similar to the vaccine bank, we bring in a
group of experts to really identify the top priority in funding
for each year. That money is distributed each year, so when you
ask about the timing--and I can pass to Dr. Naugle about
specifics for this recent round of funding--but we do announce
the funding every year so that there is an annual cycle of new
funding available.
And as far as the existing projects and what they are
looking like, Dr. Naugle?
Dr. Naugle. Yes. So, correct. Every year, we provide
funding for these projects on both the NADPRP side, which you
talked about, as well as the NAHLN side, right, which goes to
the different laboratories. The prior announcement that we just
did was probably the largest that we have had. It was for the
$15.8 million for the 60 projects. And that is because we know
that the last year we went to a steady state of $18 million for
the NADPRP program.
So beyond that, I would say that these agreements tend to
be for a year, renewable up to a second year, so the projects
that were initiated very early on in the course of the farm
bill funding are in the final stages of being completed at this
time.
Mr. Davis of North Carolina. Okay. Thank you so much.
Eastern North Carolina has a very robust agricultural workforce
and a large presence of poultry producers. And I have heard
from several in the industry and labor leaders. Given the
recent outbreak of the highly-pathogenic avian influenza, how
do you assess product safety and workplace safety, which go
hand-in-hand at large poultry processing facilities?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you, Representative Davis, for that
question. And Dr. Naugle can talk specifically about some of
the safety procedures. I will just say that we take safety very
seriously. We want to make sure that as the team is coming in
and working in these poultry houses or different facilities
that have contagious diseases, that we are making sure that we
are protecting everyone, our workforce, as well as all of the
workforce that is there.
We are also making sure that we have a rapid response
corps, that it has the flex capacities so that we are not
overextending our workforce as well, and we had a rapid
response team to be able to handle that.
Dr. Naugle?
Dr. Naugle. Yes, I would just add from the worker safety
perspective in the event of a response, anyone who is working
on that response wears the appropriate personal protective
equipment. We also have a safety officer onsite at all
responses to ensure worker safety. We also collaborate with
local state departments and the CDC to ensure post-response
monitoring for signs of flu.
Mr. Davis of North Carolina. Okay. Thank you for the
response.
Over the past several years, Congress has shown tremendous
support for the Agriculture Quarantine Inspection Program, most
recently with the reintroduction of the Beagle Brigade Act
(H.R. 1480/S. 759). How important is this program for keeping
foreign animal and plant diseases and pests out of the United
States? And how does your agency work with Customs and Border
Protection to ensure its success?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you, Representative Davis, for that
question. And that is such an important part. It is really an
important factor in keeping foreign animal diseases out of the
country is APHIS' partnership with CBP that you identified. The
AQI funding is the funding source for that partnership. It
allows us to be able to fund our partners at CBP. Any of us who
have come into the country from foreign travel have been
interviewed and asked whether we are bringing in animal
products, and that is a really important piece of our defense
mechanism to prevent foreign animal diseases from coming in.
We also, through that funding, are funding things like the
detector dog teams that are used at many airports and also
parcel facilities so that product that is coming in via person
or also parcel is inspected. These are all funded through the
AQI fees.
And we want to just recognize Congress for being able to
supplement the AQI fees. AQI fees, for those who might not be
familiar, receive various funding sources, but part of it is
through international air travel. And when international air
travel mostly screeched to a halt at the beginning of the
pandemic, the funding source also dropped significantly. But
thanks to supplemental funding from Congress, we have received
close to $1 billion in additional funds to continue to make
sure that we have our safeguards in place at all of our points
of entry so that we don't introduce foreign animal diseases
into the country.
Mr. Davis of North Carolina. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
would yield back.
The Chairman. And I recognize the gentleman from Iowa,
Congressman Feenstra, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairman Mann, for holding this
hearing. You look good in that chairmanship. Thank you for
doing this.
I also want to thank Under Secretary Moffitt and Dr. Naugle
for being here.
In Iowa, obviously, the avian influenza outbreak has been
very extreme. I think \1/4\ of the birds that were depopulated
came from Iowa. Fifty-eight million birds were affected in 47
states, and we had 16 million turkeys, chickens, and birds
destroyed in Iowa, so this is significant.
I have lived through it. I have lived through the 2015
outbreak and since. I have seen a lot of changes, which is
great, working with APHIS and then also our Secretary of Ag
Mike Naig in Iowa, the depopulation time has decreased from
15.5 days in 2015 to about 4 days in 2022, so this is very,
very significant.
Either one of you, or Under Secretary, is there anything
the agency can do to start looking at minimizing the risk, or
can we look at predictive modeling, anything that can help our
producers to try to minimize this from happening each year, and
again, trying to curb the effects?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you for that question. And, I want to
just acknowledge just the deep impact that highly-pathogenic
avian influenza has had on producers, has had on consumers as
well. We in this hearing really talk about and highlight the
success that we have seen from the farm bill programs. They are
working in our current outbreak, as you talked about, a big
difference from 2015. And that has been great in many ways, but
it certainly has deeply impacted the producers.
You asked about what additional measures that we are taking
and predictive tools, and there are a lot of different things
that we are doing. First off, I want to highlight biosecurity.
We have worked with producers, and industry has also worked
with producers on developing more robust biosecurity plans and
training for those biosecurity plans so that they are
implemented by producers. We have seen a reduction in lateral
spread, which is spread between house-to-house from 70 percent
in the 2015 outbreak to around 15, 16 percent in this current
outbreak, so a big, significant reduction there.
We have more to do. We know, as you mentioned, the virus is
prevalent in the wild bird population, so how do we reduce the
attractiveness of the farms from wild bird populations is
another avenue that we are working at. Predictive modeling and
our partners at Wildlife Services and our partners with fish
and wildlife agencies across the country at states is a very
important part of what we are doing as well. We talked about
the lab network through NAHLN.
Mr. Feenstra. Yes.
Ms. Moffitt. We have tested over two million birds so that
we understand and know where the birds are traveling so our
industry can be prepared.
Mr. Feenstra. Yes, awesome. When you talk about NAHLN,
obviously, that is born out of Iowa, too. Iowa State University
is home to the world-renowned vet diagnostic lab and they are
doing a lot. I am concerned. Is there anything that we can do
to help undertake the current workload and be more prepared
from the lab and NAHLN, anything that we can do in the farm
bill that you look at and say, hey, this might be a good idea?
Ms. Moffitt. For the lab networks, the variety of funding
sources that the NAHLN network receives is very important,
certainly through state funding, through land-grant funding,
through appropriations, as well as farm bill, and that I think
the variety of funding sources, I believe, has been very
important for those lab networks.
Dr. Naugle, is there anything additional?
Dr. Naugle. I would just add that, earlier today, we talked
about some of the gaps in the veterinary workforce----
Mr. Feenstra. Yes.
Dr. Naugle.--and I think when you talk about the workforce
of the laboratory, it is an even more specialized group of
people, right, because they have these additional----
Mr. Feenstra. Yes.
Dr. Naugle.--skills and capabilities, so I think workforce
development for laboratories is critical.
Mr. Feenstra. Awesome. So I am just going to pivot here,
and it has the same theme. African swine fever. The
depopulation of birds is one thing. When you have to euthanize
hogs is another thing. And we saw this with COVID when we had
to do it with COVID. Are you really taking serious measures of
what this is going to look like when you have to depopulate
large animals and where are they going to go? And I know China
is having this issue, right? I mean, you can't really just bury
them because the disease stays. I mean, have these things been
thought through?
Ms. Moffitt. Representative Feenstra, thank you for the
really important question. As we have been, we have been
absolutely preparing for the, I hope, unlikely event of African
swine fever in the country. With that said, we know that we
need to be ready, and we have been investing through funding
through NADPRP, as well as through the CCC funding that the
Secretary has authorized for African swine fever, different
mechanisms and rapid response so that we understand how to do
disposal.
Dr. Naugle, perhaps you can talk a little bit--oh, we are
out of time.
Mr. Feenstra. Yes. Yes. Thank you. I would like a response
to that in writing at some point, okay? Thank you. I yield
back.
[The information referred to is located on p. 41.]
The Chairman. Thank you. I now recognize the gentlewoman
from Virginia, Congresswoman Spanberger, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, under Secretary Moffitt, for joining us today.
Dr. Naugle, thank you for being here as well. It is great to
see you both here, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to
the importance of animal health in American agriculture.
While livestock producers have certainly long known the
threat that animal disease poses to our food supply, more
Americans in recent times have really come to understand this
reality as we have seen the price of eggs continue to go up in
part due to the avian flu. As a mother of three children, I
certainly know how important this nutritious food staple can be
to families. Egg burritos are a fan favorite in my home.
And importantly, I have heard from Virginia poultry
producers that APHIS has been helpful as a partner in
responding to outbreaks in the Commonwealth, so I do want to
thank you for that work. But can you please share what USDA is
doing to help poultry producers impacted by the avian flu
beyond indemnity payments really to ensure the producers don't
go out of business after an outbreak? And I know that you have
touched on this periodically throughout your testimony today,
but I am really concerned about the long-term effects on our
nation's egg supply and the increase and impact on families and
of course the producers I represent.
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you, Representative Spanberger, for that
question. And certainly as recognized with Representative
Feenstra as well, the impact of what this has done for
producers, particularly small producers. You mentioned
indemnity. That is a very important part of the resources and
the tools that have come from the Commodity Credit Corporation
so that producers are able to capture some of the loss.
Looking further at markets and expanding and broadening
more and new and better markets that we often are working on at
the Department as well, we are looking at how do we advance
more local and regional markets, how do we advance more
processing capacity, more processing capacity, writ large?
Ms. Spanberger. Okay.
Ms. Moffitt. I know we are also looking at, and Farm
Service Agency is evaluating, what programs that they have to
support users who have been hit in this distressed time as
well.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you. I am glad you are thinking about
it across the board as, of course, I knew you would be, but I
look forward to any updates into the future.
Switching from poultry to cattle, I have recently heard
from Virginia cattle producers that they are seeing a rise in
theileriosis cases within their herds, which I know you know
has a very high mortality rate. Unfortunately, the only way to
prevent this disease is through tick control, which can be very
costly. I have also recently learned that ELAP, the Emergency
Assistance for Livestock, which provides financial assistance
to eligible livestock producers for losses due to this disease,
does not cover losses due to theileriosis. Can you discuss why
that is and what options exist for livestock producers to help
with the cost of tick mitigation and losses associated with
this disease?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you for that question, Representative
Spanberger. We can look into and I can connect with FSA on ELAP
and what is and isn't allowed to be funded, but I pass it to
Dr. Naugle on more things that we are doing.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you.
Dr. Naugle. Yes. So APHIS has been kind of on the forefront
since the Asian longhorn tick, which is the carrier for
theileriosis in the Virginia area since it was first detected
several years ago. We work with a number of partners, including
the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, on educational
outreach. And while we don't have a vaccine, we do have
treatment available for that particular disease.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you very much. We recently hosted a
farm summit in my district, and this was an area of significant
concern and frankly heated discussion because so many of
Virginia's cattle producers are deeply concerned about the
impact. So I would love to get additional information. We will
follow up in writing to request that because I do want to make
sure that that is available to the producers across my
district, so thank you very much.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Great. The chair now recognizes the gentleman
from Missouri, Congressman Alford, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Alford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
witness for being here today.
Under Secretary Moffitt, I want to talk about workforce a
little bit more. I think it is so important. We all know the
importance of having a great APHIS staff in place to help with
our preparedness and response. It is my understanding that 13
percent of the total USDA workforce right now is eligible for
retirement. Is that correct to your understanding?
Ms. Moffitt. I don't know the exact number, but certainly--
--
Mr. Alford. All right. We have done a little research on
this. Our top-notch staff has. In the next 4 years, another 13
percent is going to be eligible for retirement. That is a big
number. What are we doing to make sure that we have the workers
in place to create safety?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you for that question. And I think that
we are very focused on how do we build our workforce across the
board at USDA and specifically at APHIS. As you have mentioned,
our APHIS workforce I would say--I call them our unsung heroes.
They are working behind the scenes on making sure our food
supply chain is safe, making sure that we have a safe and
secure food supply chain in there, so important. And a critical
part, as I think Ranking Member Costa said, in our national
food security. So making sure we have a workforce that is ready
when we do have retirements and that we are constantly flowing
in new employees is important.
As far as our workforce for emergency response, we are
developing a rapid response corps so that we can flex our
workforce and handle response capability----
Mr. Alford. How big will that be?
Ms. Moffitt. What?
Mr. Alford. How big will this corps be for rapid response?
Ms. Moffitt. It is starting out right now with 12
positions, so it is building up. It is just beginning. But at
the same time, we also are working on emergency hiring
authorities, so we have hired, through emergency hiring
authorities, 65 additional staff this year, as well as 25 term-
limited positions.
That said, getting to the core of your question, how do we
look long-term, we have many programs that are available for
high school students who are interested in getting involved in
agriculture, becoming veterinarians, or other fields in
agriculture, as well as for college students. And we have
different things like an internship program. Dr. Naugle can
talk a little bit more about some of the different programs
that we have so that we build and keep the pipeline coming into
APHIS and to USDA across the board.
Mr. Alford. I would like to hear about that because I know
this is a big concern all over America, workforce.
Ms. Moffitt. Yes.
Mr. Alford. How are you getting young people interested in
this, really which is a national security issue?
Dr. Naugle. Well, sir, I think that is it. That is the
challenge that we all have, right, and we need to start young.
We need to start with students that are in 4-H, FFA, perhaps
targeting in areas where we know there are major livestock
industries to get some of those students interested in animal
health jobs. We do have numerous internships within APHIS for
really all ages of students, whether high school, all the way
up through college, and we do have the premier Saul T. Wilson
Scholarship Program and internship that provides some funding
for students to attend veterinary school, and upon completion,
they return and work for us for a certain period of years. But
I think it is really going to take effort from all of us. I
don't think it is something that APHIS can do alone. And I
think we really need to leverage groups like 4-H and FFA.
Mr. Alford. Madam Under Secretary, what can we do in
Congress to help you in this effort?
Ms. Moffitt. Well, that is a very good question. I can take
that back with our team to look more at what types of things
that we could ask for from Congress for this and get back to
you.
[The information referred to is located on p. 42.]
Mr. Alford. That would be great. We would love to hear
that. We love to help out.
As you know, BSE or mad cow disease exists in two forms,
classical and atypical. Can you talk us through the big-picture
differences in the forms of the disease and explain why we do
not restrict imports based on atypical cases of BSE?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you for that question, Representative. I
am going to pass it to Dr. Naugle who can get into the science
on that.
Dr. Naugle. Great. So I would really describe it, this is
the difference. What we call classical BSE, it is a malforming
of the proteins in the brain, right? And it is infectious.
Atypical BSE is kind of like that malformation that occurs due
to old age. When we typically see atypical BSE, even atypical
scrapie in sheep, which are in the same family, it tends to be
in older animals. And even the World Organisation for Animal
Health has said atypical scrapie and atypical BSE are not
transmissible. When we have gone back and done the
investigation with those cattle or with those sheep that have
atypical, we can't find any exposure. There was no known
exposure to other infected animals so that is the difference.
Mr. Alford. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks again for
being here. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you. The chair now recognizes the
gentleman from Indiana, Congressman Baird, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I really appreciate
this hearing, and I appreciate the witness being here. My
background is in research and animal science and so on, and so
I really appreciate having this discussion.
Under Secretary Moffitt, as you know, gene editing has been
a promising tool for meeting the sustainability, the animal
health and food security demands facing our food supply, so I
was pleased to see the USDA budget request acknowledge animal
biotechnology as one of the Secretary's top priorities. So my
question is can you or Dr. Naugle talk more about the potential
for gene editing to advance animal health, as well as the
potential role of USDA in regulating and approving products for
animal biotechnology?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you for that question, Representative
Baird. And certainly, as you described your background, this
hearing is right up your alley for sure.
Animal biotech, as you asked about, is an important tool
just as we talk about our disease response mechanisms and the
different tools that we must have in the tool chest. As we look
forward, right, with climate change, with other things that
animals might need to have to be able to adapt to a changing or
hotter climate, animal biotech can be a tool that producers may
want to be able to tap into. And so the ability to get this
right and to advance a regulatory rulemaking process for animal
biotech is absolutely an important part of that.
At USDA, as you talked about, we have the resources. We are
part of the conversation. We have an incredible talented staff
pool that is working on biotech on the plant side. Of course,
we have a significant number of veterinarians at the
Department. We have, of course, our trade partners at Farm
Services Agency. So we are looking at all of the different
factors and really opening the aperture of what this looks like
as we regulate gene-edited animals. What is really important is
that there is a regulatory framework, that it supports
innovation and safety, and that it provides certainty for
developers because we want to make sure that developers, small,
medium, and large, are able to participate in a regulatory
framework, and that certainty is what we hear is a very
important part of that.
So at USDA we have a strong track record for developing or
for regulating genetic engineering; and, certainly, we want to
make sure that we have the best possible regulatory system at
play.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. And, Dr. Naugle, do you have any
thoughts, anything to add? I really appreciate the focus on
biotechnology. I want to say that again because I really feel
that it is going to be important as we move to try to find
plants and animals that can adapt to environmental change and
is also a way of improving our volume on plants and animals, so
I really appreciate the focus there.
My next question then deals with the animal vaccine
technologies. So, with the magnitude of challenges posed for
these disease outbreaks and the critical need to safeguard our
food supply, does USDA agree it should consider any and all
options for veterinary countermeasures? Doctor?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you for that question, and for this one,
I will certainly pass it on to Dr. Naugle.
Dr. Naugle. Yes. So with regard to vaccines specifically as
a countermeasure, we rely on APHIS' Center for Veterinary
Biologics to evaluate any possible technology and determine
that it is safe, pure, efficacious, and potent. And so we would
consider new technologies as they are developed.
Mr. Baird. Thank you very much. And we are getting close on
time, so with that, Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you, Congressman Baird.
As we wrap here, just some closing remarks. From high-path
avian influenza to African swine fever and from foot-and-mouth
disease to biosecurity measures, this Subcommittee will
continue to work to give animal health and livestock, dairy,
and poultry issues the attention that they deserve. These
issues, however, also deserve the attention of the House
Appropriations Committee, and they deserve the attention not
only of the USDA but also the Food and Drug Administration
where proposed changes to long-standing labeling requirements
for re-implanting of shorter acting growth implants for cattle
could abruptly stop a common practice that would adversely
impact the industry.
The issues deserve our attention during the reauthorization
of the farm bill and on the House floor. The livelihood of
farmers, ranchers, and agricultural producers, and the
consumers whom they often work for is at stake.
Under Secretary Moffitt, thank you for participating in
today's hearing.
Oh, you popped in. So Congressman Molinaro, the Member from
New York, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Molinaro. I apologize, Chairman, but I do thank you. I
just wanted to circle back to a couple I think somewhat
specific New York questions, so I will get to that. Obviously,
very timely. We know how dangerous an outbreak of disease can
be. And of course, over the past year, avian influenza has
decimated poultry farmers across the country. Now,
specifically, though, considering just how destructive disease
outbreaks can be for farmers and in fact the entire food
system, it is essential obviously that USDA and Congress work
together to ensure robust prevention.
New York farmers very specifically are fortunate to benefit
from Cornell University's Animal Health Diagnostic Center,
which happens to be in my district in upstate New York. This is
one of the most advanced diagnostic laboratories in the country
and of course helps livestock farms of all sizes throughout my
district manage the health of their herd and prevent the spread
of disease.
The Animal Health Diagnostic Center is part of the National
Animal Health Laboratory Network, and so very specifically,
Under Secretary, could you just speak to how the USDA is
working to improve access to facilities like the Animal Health
Diagnostic Center to prevent the spread of avian flu and other
like diseases?
Ms. Moffitt. Representative, thank you so much for that
question. And the National Animal Health Laboratory Network is
such an important part of our response mechanism so that we
have quick diagnostic across the country, as you identified. We
have labs in over 40 different states, 43 different states, and
that network of labs is a critical part of it.
You asked about the funding that we have. Thanks to the
2018 Farm Bill, we were able to receive additional funding for
the National Animal Health Lab Network, so additional $20
million that have been able to supplement annual
appropriations, as well as state funding and also land-grant
funding that the labs receive. This funding is an important
part. I have not been and visited the lab in Cornell but did
get to visit the lab in Minnesota, and I saw firsthand what
they were able to do with the NAHLN--that is the acronym--with
the NAHLN funding that they received to be able to invest in
equipment that could do rapid diagnostics so that when we do
have an outbreak--and I was able to see this before we had
high-path avian influenza to see how they were ready and the
proper equipment and materials to be able to be ready should an
outbreak occur so they can do mass diagnostic testing. The
quicker we know that we have a disease, the quicker that we
know we have a foreign animal disease, the better we can
respond quickly.
Mr. Molinaro. So I appreciate that. And I also want to
extend certainly an invitation--Chairman Thompson was just with
us in the 19th District, met with the folks at Cornell,
certainly would love to have USDA staff and yourself visit the
great work at Cornell.
Could you though--and I apologize if you did cover it. So
now in the development of the farm bill, I assume other than or
inclusive of dollars, what could Congress be focused on to
expand obviously access and that support?
Ms. Moffitt. Well, and Dr. Naugle can go into this more if
you are specifically talking about the lab or----
Mr. Molinaro. Yes.
Ms. Moffitt. I think the funding of course is very
important. We hear that from the labs themselves. The
flexibility that the funding allows for them to be able to
identify what needs they have and for us to be able to fund
those I think is important as well.
Dr. Naugle----
Mr. Molinaro. That would be great. Thank you.
Dr. Naugle. Yes. And I will say I had the pleasure of being
at the Cornell Lab last summer, so I had a very recent tour. It
was beautiful. The one thing that I would add--and we have
talked about it in a prior question--is workforce development
for our laboratories as well.
Mr. Molinaro. And what--and I apologize, what do you
recommend as a pipeline beyond funding to expand at least
access and development of the workforce?
Ms. Moffitt. Well, I have been in and around your district,
and there are incredible technical colleges that New York has.
That is an incredible opportunity if it already isn't as a
pipeline to develop high school students and college students
who are interested in different career options, making sure
that they know that working in a lab or working in an animal
health capacity in some way, shape, or form I think is a really
important part of building the pipeline. And the technical
colleges that New York has, as well as technical colleges that
we heard in Connecticut, are really a valuable tool there.
Mr. Molinaro. Yes. I think just to further that point,
expanding K-12 ag education, making the connectivity through
vocational applied and life science education, and of course
making the connectivity to community colleges and higher
education institutions as a means of not only creating the
pathway but also expanding and supporting agriculture in
upstate New York. So I just appreciate that and look forward
perhaps to hosting a visit at Cornell.
Mr. Chairman, thanks very much.
Ms. Moffitt. I will just add, we talked about this earlier,
but the pipeline in schools is important, pipeline through 4-H
and FFA and all those other programs are important as well.
The Chairman. Next, the chair recognizes the Congressman
from Texas, Congressman Jackson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Jackson of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
you squeaking me in here right at the end. It looks like I got
here seconds before we are done, but thank you. I have four
committees, so it has been chaos today. But thank you to our
witnesses for being here today.
As you may or may not know, I represent the 13th
Congressional District of Texas. It is one of the largest
animal agriculture districts in the country. Texas 13 has more
fed cattle than anywhere else in the entire U.S., representing
over $16.5 billion in economic value. The work that you all do
in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is critical
to the overall health of the animal agriculture industry in my
district and the rest of the country, and I appreciate it.
Under Secretary Moffitt, I wanted to ask you, foot-and-
mouth disease is right off the coast of one of our major
trading partners right now, Australia, in Indonesia. African
swine fever has been found in the Dominican Republic, a mere
stone's throw away from Puerto Rico. Your testimony underlines
the catastrophic impacts these and other foreign animal
diseases would have in the U.S. if and when an outbreak were to
occur. Can you speak to the importance of continuing to bolster
the National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasure Bank
in the next farm bill, including further funding to meet our
ever-growing need in protecting from foot-and-mouth disease and
other foreign animal diseases that we might encounter?
Ms. Moffitt. Thank you so much for that question. And I
will pass it to Dr. Naugle to talk about the vaccine bank. And
then of course as you recognize, the preparedness, the
response, making sure that we are keeping it out in the first
place, but the vaccine bank--but, important is biosecurity and
stamping out the disease, and that vaccine bank adds an
important insurance tool as well.
But I will pass it to Dr. Naugle to talk about the vaccine
bank.
Dr. Naugle. Sure. A couple of additional details here, so
we have purchased over $56 million in vaccine antigen
concentrate for FMD and finished vaccine for CSF, which is
classical swine fever. Also important in the bank is it is a
countermeasures bank in addition to a vaccine bank, so we
purchased diagnostic test kits for FMD and ASF, African swine
fever, so we can be ready to respond as quickly as we detect
those diseases. Currently, our goal is to have a minimum of 25
million doses available for each of the top ten strains for
FMD, and we are working toward that goal. So I do think that
the bank and having access to those vaccines is critically
important from a preparedness perspective.
Mr. Jackson of Texas. Thank you. I agree, and I think that
prevention obviously is way cheaper than trying to treat once
it gets here. I think we all understand that.
Madam Under Secretary, I was going to ask you one more
question. In your testimony, you mentioned how foreign disease
outbreaks highlight the critical need for public-sector animal
health professionals, especially veterinarians. I just want to
point out that in my district, the Texas Tech University School
of Veterinary Medicine is specialized in training the types of
large rural animal vets that we need so desperately right now
in the country, vets that the USDA needs to maintain the health
of America's animal agriculture industry. I am hopeful that the
USDA recognizes the potential of the Texas Tech University
School of Veterinary Medicine as a pipeline to the talent that
they so desperately need when staffing shortages at the agency.
Can you please expand on the opportunities that you are taking
to recruit and retain talented individuals like the ones I am
describing?
Ms. Moffitt. Representative, thank you so much for that
question and for highlighting, I think some of the important--
part of our pipeline development is of course veterinary
schools across the country. These are important for us in many
ways. I had the opportunity not to visit Texas Tech but to
visit another university, another vet school, and to meet with
students and talk about the opportunities for working at APHIS,
at USDA as a whole. And I know our team at APHIS, our team at
USDA are constantly reaching out and recruiting students from
vet schools across the country, I would imagine including Texas
Tech.
And I can pass it to Dr. Naugle to talk about some of the
scholarship programs, some of the internship programs that we
have as well so that we are not just doing recruitment but we
are also really feeding that pipeline.
Dr. Naugle. Thank you. First, I would say there is a lot of
opportunity for students who are interested in working for us
in Texas, right? We have the Cattle Fever Tick Program. We also
have the southern border ports that we cover, so these could be
veterinarians, as well as animal health technicians, really
anyone interested in agriculture.
Within USDA APHIS, we have several internship programs for
students, college students, high school students. We also have
an internship program that is a scholarship program. It is
called the Saul T. Wilson Scholarship, and it allows us to
provide some funding to help students go to veterinary school
and return to us. And we are very well aware of the program at
Texas Tech, as well as programs at Texas A&M.
Mr. Jackson of Texas. Yes, and we have a component of Texas
A&M in my district as well that does the first couple of years
of that type of training. It is a phenomenal program as well. I
understand, as a physician, how the money that is out there
available to you based on what specialty you pick is going to
drive a lot of what you do. I also know my district director
and my treasurer in my district are large animal vets, and I
know that like a lot of people will choose to be small animal
vets because that is where the money is at, so anything I think
that you can do to foster people wanting to go into taking care
of our cattle and our large animals and stuff is going to be
very beneficial to us all in the long run.
Thank you. With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. Under the Rules of the Committee,
the record of today's hearing will remain open for 10 calendar
days to receive additional material and supplementary written
responses from the witnesses to any question posed by a Member.
This hearing of the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and
Poultry is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:43 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
Submitted Material by Hon. Tracey Mann, a Representative in Congress
From Kansas
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
Supplementary Material Submitted by Hon. Jenny Lester Moffitt, Under
Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, U.S. Department of
Agriculture
Insert 1
Mr. Feenstra. Awesome. So I am just going to pivot here, and
it has the same theme. African swine fever. The depopulation of
birds is one thing. When you have to euthanize hogs is another
thing. And we saw this with COVID when we had to do it with
COVID. Are you really taking serious measures of what this is
going to look like when you have to depopulate large animals
and where are they going to go? And I know China is having this
issue, right? I mean, you can't really just bury them because
the disease stays. I mean, have these things been thought
through?
Ms. Moffitt. Representative Feenstra, thank you for the
really important question. As we have been, we have been
absolutely preparing for the, I hope, unlikely event of African
swine fever in the country. With that said, we know that we
need to be ready, and we have been investing through funding
through NADPRP, as well as through the CCC funding that the
Secretary has authorized for African swine fever, different
mechanisms and rapid response so that we understand how to do
disposal.
Dr. Naugle, perhaps you can talk a little bit--oh, we are out
of time.
Mr. Feenstra. Yes. Yes. Thank you. I would like a response to
that in writing at some point, okay? Thank you. I yield back.
We understand the importance of having plans in place for
depopulation of livestock and poultry, especially large animals. While
we hope to never have to use these tools and techniques, we have plans
in place for what APHIS and its state and industry partners would need
to do in event of an outbreak. USDA relies on livestock and poultry
depopulation guidelines set by the American Veterinary Medical
Association (AVMA), which has identified preferred, permitted, and non-
recommended methods for each species. The USDA, state animal health
officials, and producers carefully weigh the different options to
determine the best option for humane depopulation and do not make such
decisions lightly.
The various tabletop exercises and trainings we have conducted,
some of which were funded through the farm bill's animal health
programs, help us work through various scenarios so that we are able to
make the best decisions using the lessons we learned from those
practice scenarios. I would also note, that aside from those exercises,
the farm bill's animal health programs have funded projects focused on
bettering our understanding of depopulation and disposal techniques.
Even if the project was focused on one state or one species of animal,
we have seen that those lessons and strategies developed through those
projects can be applicable widely.
Insert 2
Ms. Moffitt. . . .
. . . And we have different things like an internship
program. Dr. Naugle can talk a little bit more about some of
the different programs that we have so that we build and keep
the pipeline coming into APHIS and to USDA across the board.
Mr. Alford. I would like to hear about that because I know
this is a big concern all over America, workforce.
Ms. Moffitt. Yes.
Mr. Alford. How are you getting young people interested in
this, really which is a national security issue?
Dr. Naugle. Well, sir, I think that is it. That is the
challenge that we all have, right, and we need to start young.
We need to start with students that are in 4-H, FFA, perhaps
targeting in areas where we know there are major livestock
industries to get some of those students interested in animal
health jobs. We do have numerous internships within APHIS for
really all ages of students, whether high school, all the way
up through college, and we do have the premier Saul T. Wilson
Scholarship Program and internship that provides some funding
for students to attend veterinary school, and upon completion,
they return and work for us for a certain period of years. But
I think it is really going to take effort from all of us. I
don't think it is something that APHIS can do alone. And I
think we really need to leverage groups like 4-H and FFA.
Mr. Alford. Madam Under Secretary, what can we do in Congress
to help you in this effort?
Ms. Moffitt. Well, that is a very good question. I can take
that back with our team to look more at what types of things
that we could ask for from Congress for this and get back to
you.
The outbreak of highly-pathogenic avian influenza again
demonstrated how important having a dedicated and skilled workforce is
to protecting agriculture. It also demonstrated our need to improve
recruitment and retention efforts, and we really appreciate this
question.
Staff are considering several options to address this need. Each
option will have a budgetary impact. USDA will consider each of the
options within the context of the annual budget process.
______
Submitted Questions
Response from Hon. Jenny Lester Moffitt, Under Secretary for Marketing
and Regulatory Programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Question Submitted by Hon. Trent Kelly, a Representative in Congress
from Mississippi
Question. Madam Under Secretary, my home state of Mississippi is a
large poultry state, producing more than $3.8 billion of poultry
products, making it our number one commodity in terms of economic
value, a position it's held for 28 consecutive years over all other
commodities grown in the state. Among the poultry growing states, we
typically rank 5th in the nation in broiler production.
I first want to commend the agency for all their work on the highly
pathogenic avian influenza issue. Fortunately, to date, Mississippi has
only had one positive case of HPAI, found in a commercial broiler
operation this November.
Back in 2015, a group of stakeholders, including several from my
state, led an effort to make the APHIS indemnification process more
equitable for the contract grower, in the event that birds have to be
depopulated on-farm. It is my understanding that USDA did in fact make
those recommended adjustments and created a protocol to which the
contract grower is compensated for many of the costs that they have
invested in raising the bird to the point of depopulation. Will you
update the Committee on that change and tell the Committee if that
process is working well?
Answer. In 2018, APHIS published a final rule that allows for
contract growers to receive a portion of the indemnity compensation for
the work they had performed at the time when birds are depopulated
because of highly pathogenic avian influenza. By all accounts, this
process is working well, and producers are receiving the funding to
which they are entitled. Indemnity funding remains an important tool,
encouraging producers to quickly report illness in their birds, and
allowing APHIS and its partners to move rapidly to eliminate the
potential spread of the virus.
Questions Submitted by Hon. Randy Feenstra, a Representative in
Congress from Iowa
Question 1. Under Secretary Moffitt, I'm aware that EPA has three
ongoing risk assessments for formaldehyde, and it seems the EPA is on a
path to set unscientifically supported and extremely low exposure
limits that will in effect ban it's use in the U.S. Many of my
constituents are concerned about losing this important product for
agricultural applications. Formaldehyde and formaldehyde-based products
provide critical applications for crop production, veterinary medicine,
animal agriculture and aquaculture, from protecting against Salmonella
in hatching eggs or feed, to a disinfectant on-farm, fungal control in
aquaculture or to help increase crop yields. Research has also shown it
could be our most effective risk mitigation tool against African swine
fever if it ever came to the United States. What are you doing to
ensure agriculture's voice is heard and considered in this debate so my
constituents don't lose this important tool that can be and has been
used safely in agricultural applications for decades?
Answer. APHIS coordinates with EPA on the effectiveness of
disinfectants they approve for specific livestock and poultry
pathogens, particularly related to foreign animal diseases response.
APHIS also maintains lists of those EPA-approved products. With regards
to USDA's role in ensuring agriculture's voice is heard in discussions
around pesticide regulatory actions, USDA has an office specifically
dedicated to serving as the voice of the grower, the Office of Pest
Management Policy (OPMP). As part of OPMP's review process, OPMP will
reach out to affected growers and collaborate with APHIS following the
release of the risk assessments to raise awareness, and OPMP will
ensure grower concerns are reflected in feedback to EPA.
Question 2. Under Secretary Moffitt, the National Institute of
Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Education (NIAMRRE) led by Iowa
State University, and of which University of California Davis is a very
active member, has been working with USDA APHIS to understand the how
to best collect and share antimicrobial use and antimicrobial
resistance (AMR) data for livestock operations. A key outcome of that
work has identified that having statutory protections, similar to HIPAA
laws for human health, would allow for better collection of AMR data
and lead to more effective decision-making. How could these data
security protections be provided and implemented at the national level?
Answer. Protecting producer data is a priority for USDA. We have
heard concerns from producers and veterinarians about the
confidentiality of data, and it is possible that those concerns are
preventing some participation in these important programs. We have
experience, through some of our animal health surveys in protecting the
confidentiality of data and encouraging producer participation. We
would be happy to continue to work with NIAMRRE and Congress to
identify possible solutions for the issues they raise and identify
whether statutory changes would be needed.
Question 3. Under Secretary Moffitt, through federally appropriated
funds, NIAMRRE has also been actively working with APHIS to create an
AMR Dashboard to monitor AMR and antimicrobial use. Building off this
existing work, how do you plan to prioritize efforts to combat AMR and
how could you utilize this dashboard to carry out those plans?
Answer. The AMR dashboards are an important tool in our Agency's
broader One Health Strategy. APHIS and our partners will use AMR
dashboards to monitor trends in antimicrobial resistance patterns,
detect emerging resistance profiles, and better understand
relationships between antimicrobial use and health management practices
and antimicrobial resistance. In November 2022, APHIS announced a
competitive funding opportunity to develop dashboard tools to improve
access to information on AMR in domesticated animals through public
private partnerships. APHIS is thoroughly reviewing those proposals,
and we look forward to announcing the projects that will be funded
soon.
Question 4. Under Secretary Moffitt, are you aware that U.S. EPA
has proposed restricting the use of rodent control pesticides
rodenticides that will make it significantly harder and much more
costly for many poultry and livestock producers to control rats and
mice on their operations? Can you engage with your counterparts at EPA
to seek rodenticide policies that do not impose any unnecessary
restrictions and that EPA fully take into account animal health and
welfare in whatever they do?
Answer. APHIS and OPMP did provide technical input as EPA was
considering possible rodenticide actions, and OPMP provided formal
public comment during the comment period. In addition, OPMP conducted a
survey around the proposed actions using the authority granted by the
2018 Farm Bill to provide more information to EPA on the impacts of
their proposal. We will continue to inform EPA of the unique needs of
the agricultural community as they make decisions.
Questions Submitted by Hon. Max L. Miller, a Representative in Congress
from Ohio
Question 1. Please share how USDA is working with state, veterinary
and industry partners to ensure resources and processes are in place to
address foreign animal disease outbreaks, which have capacity to
cripple the agricultural sector if not prepared?
Answer. Partnerships are essential to ensuring we are prepared to
detect and respond to foreign animal diseases. As an example, during
the current outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, we have
worked closely with our state partners in every state to rapidly detect
and respond to the virus. We have worked hand-in-hand with our industry
partners, sharing information about the outbreak and enlisting their
help in spreading the message of the importance of biosecurity. Those
efforts have helped us control the disease and led to the success we
have seen where we have very few cases of the virus in commercial
facilities, and those that we do see are eradicated quickly.
Question 2. Please let us know how programs such as the National
Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program, the National Animal
Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank, and the National Animal
Health Laboratory Network, which includes a partnership with the Ohio
Department of Agriculture's Animal Health Division, support this
mission?
Answer. The farm bill's animal health programs have been a critical
tool in our efforts to protect animal health and expand our
capabilities to detect and respond to foreign animal diseases. Key to
that success is that the programs have allowed us to strengthen
partnerships with states, such as the one you mention with Ohio
Department of Agriculture's Animal Health Division. The National Animal
Disease Preparedness and Response Program provides funding to states,
universities, industry organizations, Tribal partners, and other
eligible entities for projects to help identify and fill in gaps in our
existing preparedness and response capabilities and help prevent and
prepare for the most serious animal diseases. Of note, Ohio received
about $500,000 for a project on effective depopulation methods. As part
of the National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank,
APHIS has invested more than $56 million to amass a stockpile of foot-
and-mouth vaccine, with more than $15 million more planned for FY 2023.
We've also started accumulating foreign animal disease diagnostic test
kits and are planning for additional types of vaccines and
countermeasures to make sure the United States is well-prepared for
future emergencies. The additional support of the National Animal
Health Laboratory Network helps us partner with states and universities
in building diagnostic capacity and technical knowledge so that we can
rapidly detect foreign animal diseases, which is critical to stamping
out foreign animal diseases.
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