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 business expects to climb larger as extra claims for damages are processed.
The H5N1 chicken flu has swept via 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 capable of get aid underneath a U.S. Division of Agriculture program often called the Emergency Help for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program, or ELAP. This system normally supplies help for farmers impacted by wildfires, drought and flooding however was opened up for dairy farmers final 12 months 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 larger, nevertheless, as extra claims are submitted and processed. Most of the funds issued in Might and June have been for outbreaks in 2024, suggesting there are extra to return.
The aid funds have been obtained via 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 which might be fueling an outbreak,” mentioned Andrew deCoriolis, Farm Ahead’s govt director. “Chook flu spreads in precisely the sorts of environments that we’re paying to protect.”
Anja Raudabaugh, the chief govt of the business’s largest state commerce group, Western United Dairies, mentioned the funds have “ensured our dairy communities and their staff keep employed and wholesome. Till we get approval of a dairy cow vaccine, weathering this storm has solely been attainable with the help of the milk loss funds.”
Jonathan Cockroft, managing associate 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 triggered cows to abort their pregnancies, and infrequently prevented them from getting pregnant once more. A dairy cow that doesn’t give beginning doesn’t produce milk. In different instances, 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 an entire different model I’m unsure the general public understands, which is the massive influence on copy,” 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 value him greater than $2 million “simply on milk revenue and that doesn’t embody the over $250,000 of additional care prices” required to deal with cows with medicines, further 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 “essentially the most real looking method for producers to recuperate and to keep away from large disruptions within the meals provide of those merchandise.”
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 necessary to offer dairy farmers aid 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 inconceivable.
“This was a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, and we knew that we have been going to wish to assist producers, and we knew that the faster we might get some help out to them to assist them check, the higher off we have been going to be, and the sooner we’d have the ability to deliver the an infection underneath management,” he mentioned.
Farm Ahead’s DeCoriolis and others, nevertheless, say these applications perpetuate an agricultural business designed round containing tons of, if not hundreds, of genetically related animals into confined tons — veritable playgrounds for a novel virus. He additionally famous the federal aid applications don’t include any strings connected, reminiscent of 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 attempting to grasp or examine the practices they’re utilizing to quash the illness is a mistake.
“What are they doing on the farms to forestall reinfection?” she mentioned.
The USDA funds have been primarily based on a per cow milk manufacturing losses over a four-week interval. In line with Farm Ahead’s knowledge, a number of farms acquired multiple 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 Might 2025.
Rasmussen mentioned the a number of funds almost 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 checks that stay optimistic for months on finish. He mentioned he knew of a farm that was in quarantine for 9 months.
When herds are quarantined, animals should 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 will possibly’t transfer out of quarantine till checks 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 should not underneath quarantine; 715 of these had beforehand been contaminated and launched from quarantine.
A quarantined farm can nonetheless promote milk, nevertheless, even when the milk checks optimistic. Pasteurization has been proven to kill the virus.
The aid funds are one other signal of how the U.S. authorities helps the agricultural business, which is taken into account by some to be important to the nationwide curiosity.
“We’ve determined politically that that is an business that we need to assist, that was hit by one thing that clearly wasn’t their fault, and we’re going to assist them, as a result of it was a disastrous factor that hit the business,” mentioned Daniel Sumner, an agricultural economist at UC Davis. “If we considered these funds as we’re utilizing our tax cash to assist any person who’s in want, as a result of their household is poor, that’s not the case.”
