USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) released an interim rule for indemnity payments in cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) on Tuesday this week. The interim rule was drafted in the wake of the 2014-2015 HPAI outbreaks in the United States, during which turkey and laying hen flocks were significantly impacted by disease and eradication loss.
During the outbreak, concerns arose that contracted poultry growers may not be adequately compensated because the HPAI regulations distributed indemnity payments to the owners of the birds, usually a poultry producing company. Poultry companies then distributed indemnity payments to contracted growers in accordance with their contracts.
APHIS had previously developed an interim rule under the oversight of the National Poultry Improvement Plan to provide indemnity payments to both owners and contractors for eradication of low-pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) subtypes H5 and H7. The HPAI interim rule incorporates conditions from the LPAI indemnity regulations, which outline the splitting of indemnity payments between owners and contractors.
The interim rule includes a formula to determine the share of indemnity to be distributed to each the contractor and the bird owner based on: the contract between the two parties; the fair market value of the birds; the duration of the contract that had been completed prior to infection; and previous payments received by the contractor from the owner.
In cases where an APHIS administrator determines that the above formula is not applicable, APHIS will use other appropriate methods to calculate indemnity payments. The interim rule also requires both owners and contractors to verify in a statement that they had a biosecurity plan in place at their facilities at the time of a HPAI detection. If this statement is not supplied by one or both parties, indemnity claims will be denied.
The interim rule was immediately effective upon publication of the document; however, the agency will be accepting comments on the interim rule through April 11, 2016. The complete interim rule is available here. Comments on the interim rule may be submitted electronically here.
