The federal authorities has paid California dairy farms greater than $230 million to subsidize losses in milk manufacturing ensuing from chicken flu, data present, an quantity that the dairy trade expects to climb increased as extra claims for damages are processed.
The H5N1 chicken flu has swept by means of greater than 75% of California’s 1,000 dairy farms since August 2024, sickening cattle and resulting in steep dropoffs in milk manufacturing.
Farmers have been in a position to get reduction underneath a U.S. Division of Agriculture program referred to as the Emergency Help for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program, or ELAP. This system often offers help for farmers impacted by wildfires, drought and flooding however was opened up for dairy farmers final yr as chicken flu started ravaging their cows.
U.S. Division of Agriculture data present that 644 funds have been made to 359 California dairy farms between November 2024 and June 2025 totaling $231 million. The common per farm cost was about $645,000, and ranged from $2,058 to the Pereira Dairy Farm, in Visalia, to $4.4 million to Channel Islands Dairy Farm, in Corcoran.
These funds are anticipated to go a lot increased, nonetheless, as extra claims are submitted and processed. Lots of the funds issued in Could and June have been for outbreaks in 2024, suggesting there are extra to come back.
The reduction funds have been obtained by means of a Freedom of Data Act request by Farm Ahead, a nonprofit group that advocates in opposition to manufacturing unit farming. The group asserts that the subsidies assist prop up industrial-scale dairy operations that perpetuate the unfold of chicken flu.
“These are mega industrial operations that are fueling an outbreak,” mentioned Andrew deCoriolis, Farm Ahead’s govt director. “Bird flu spreads in exactly the kinds of environments that we’re paying to preserve.”
Anja Raudabaugh, the chief govt of the trade’s largest state commerce group, Western United Dairies, mentioned the funds have “ensured our dairy communities and their workers stay employed and healthy. Until we get approval of a dairy cow vaccine, weathering this storm has only been possible with the assistance of the milk loss payments.”
Jonathan Cockroft, managing companion of Channel Islands Dairy Farms, mentioned whereas the funds helped with the roughly 30% drop in milk manufacturing his farm skilled, his losses exceed the $4 million he acquired.
He mentioned the virus prompted cows to abort their pregnancies, and sometimes prevented them from getting pregnant once more. A dairy cow that doesn’t give beginning doesn’t produce milk. In different circumstances, he mentioned the udders have been so scarred by the illness that the cows have been unable to provide milk at ranges previous to an infection.
“There’s a whole other version I’m not sure the public understands, which is the huge impact on reproduction,” he mentioned.
He additionally famous many animals died — particularly when the outbreak first hit final fall, and the novelty of it mixed with the blazing warmth of the Central Valley felled 10% to fifteen% of many California herds.
Joey Airoso, a dairy farmer in Tipton, acquired a $1.45-million subsidy for an outbreak at his farm final October.
He mentioned the outbreak has price him greater than $2 million “just on milk income and that does not include the over $250,000 of extra care costs” required to deal with cows with medicines, additional staffing and veterinary consultations.
And it doesn’t cowl the price of the cows that died — which may’t produce milk or be bought for meat. The common dairy cow prices about $3,500, Cockroft mentioned.
Jay Van Rein, a spokesperson for California’s Division of Meals and Agriculture, mentioned the loss funds are “the most realistic way for producers to recover and to avoid huge disruptions in the food supply of these products.”
USDA officers didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark, however a former prime USDA official who left the company in January mentioned it was vital to supply dairy farmers reduction as soon as the company recognized H5N1 chicken flu in a handful of Texas herds in March 2024. By then the illness had been spreading for weeks, if not months, making containment to at least one state unattainable.
“This was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and we knew that we were going to need to support producers, and we knew that the quicker we could get some assistance out to them to help them test, the better off we were going to be, and the faster we’d be able to bring the infection under control,” he mentioned.
Farm Ahead’s DeCoriolis and others, nonetheless, say these packages perpetuate an agricultural trade designed round containing lots of, if not 1000’s, of genetically related animals into confined tons — veritable playgrounds for a novel virus. He additionally famous the federal reduction packages don’t include any strings connected, resembling incentives for illness mitigation and/or biosecurity.
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist on the College of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Illness Group in Canada, mentioned handing out subsidies to farms with out making an attempt to know or examine the practices they’re utilizing to quash the illness is a mistake.
“What are they doing on the farms to prevent reinfection?” she mentioned.
The USDA funds have been based mostly on a per cow milk manufacturing losses over a four-week interval. In accordance with Farm Ahead’s knowledge, a number of farms acquired a couple of subsidy. Whereas roughly half acquired only one cost, 100 farms acquired two funds, 58 acquired three, 19 acquired 4 and two acquired six separate funds.
At one farm in Tulare County, 4 USDA funds have been submitted as soon as a month between November 2024 and February 2025. At one other, funds stretched from December 2024 to Could 2025.
Rasmussen mentioned the a number of funds most definitely stemmed relying on particular circumstances on the dairies concerned.
Cockroft of the Channel Islands Dairy mentioned he and different farmers have seen waves of reinfection and milk exams that stay constructive for months on finish. He mentioned he knew of a farm that was in quarantine for 9 months.
When herds are quarantined, animals are usually not allowed to be transferred on or off web site. In California, a farm is underneath quarantine for 60 days after preliminary virus detection. It might probably’t transfer out of quarantine till exams present its milk is virus-free — for 3 weeks in a row.
Van Rein, the state agriculture spokesperson, mentioned the typical time underneath quarantine is 103 days. He mentioned that of the 1,000 herds in California, 940 are usually not underneath quarantine; 715 of these had beforehand been contaminated and launched from quarantine.
A quarantined farm can nonetheless promote milk, nonetheless, even when the milk exams constructive. Pasteurization has been proven to kill the virus.
The reduction funds are one other signal of how the U.S. authorities helps the agricultural trade, which is taken into account by some to be important to the nationwide curiosity.
“We’ve decided politically that this is an industry that we want to support, that was hit by something that obviously wasn’t their fault, and we’re going to help them, because it was a disastrous thing that hit the industry,” mentioned Daniel Sumner, an agricultural economist at UC Davis. “If we thought about these payments as we’re using our tax money to help somebody who’s in need, because their family is poor, that’s not the case.”
