Poultry farmers are still waiting for the assistance promised to them after Pure Prairie Poultry went bankrupt last fall.
According to Wisconsin poultry farmer, Terry Filla, “Nope, we have not gotten anything back yet. I haven’t really heard anything from anybody... they were hopefully going to get a payment out this week, but I’m not counting on anything. USDA, they haven’t done anything. Congress, we haven’t heard anything from them— they don’t even want to call you back. They wanted the story and all that. They got their names out there for election time, you know, just in time to make it look like they were doing something, but as far as I know, I don’t know of anything being done right now.”
Filla says that even what money is promised will be too little, too late to help poultry producers break even.
“They still have to pass the Packers and Stockyards claim. Our last birds went out like October 18th, or something like that. I’d have to ask my wife exactly when the date was but that’s when we’re supposed to be paid up until that point, but I don’t know when I talk to the people at Lighthouse, they say, well, your claim was like, I don’t know, I think it was like $25,000 or they were going to pay 30% off that this week, or try to. I was like 30%, that’s not even going to cover the electricity and the gas bill that was left, not to mention the payments and everything else that are behind,” he adds.
Filla goes on to note that his family is not alone; he says that there are many farmers in the same boat.
