As a follow-up to a bipartisan, bicameral May 2023 letter to USDA requesting that the department urge the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) to update its definition of “poultry” to better protect U.S. broiler exports during Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreaks, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) sent a second letter requesting that WOAH further tailor its “poultry” definition.
“On May 2, 2024, I led a letter along with 58 bipartisan Members of Congress to urge APHIS to prioritize revising WOAH’s poultry definition,” Rep. Clyde’s letter, addressed to Dr. David Swayne, who was recently chosen to chair the expert panel to help redefine the WOAH “poultry” definition in the Terrestrial Animal Health Code, said. “We were encouraged to see such decisive action in the response we received from APHIS’ Director Watson on June 11, 2024, including:
- Elevating this issue to a ‘priority one’ status within WOAH and forming an expert panel to draft a new definition.
- Proposing you, an esteemed local expert who led USDA’s Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens for over 25 years, to serve as chairman of this panel.
- Engaging international counterparts, including at the May 2024 WOAH General Session in Paris, to actively advocate for this change.
- Maintaining strong export sales through trade agreements.
“I’m confident that under your leadership,” the letter continued, “the panel will formulate a revised definition clearly distinguishing commercial poultry from backyard and wild flocks posing no disease threat by the May 2025 WOAH General Session.”
“Additionally, I hope the definition will appropriately distinguish types of poultry, i.e., broilers, turkeys, layers, ducks, game birds, waterfowl, etc. Currently, all these bird types are simply grouped under the umbrella term ‘poultry.’
“WOAH’s failure to implement such common-sense reforms has already cost U.S. producers hundreds of millions yearly in lost exports due to unjust trade restrictions,” the letter concluded. “For Georgia’s $38 billion poultry industry, WOAH’s decision to revise the poultry definition to distinguish between commercial and backyard/wild flocks, and hopefully species genuinely supplying international trade, will protect our economic interests for generations.”
The full letter can be found here.
