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NPPC hopeful farm bill priorities will be fully funded

Farm bill funding is a concern of the National Pork Producers Council. 

NPPC science and technology counsel Andrew Bailey calls the fiscal environment challenging as a split congress negotiates the next farm bill.

“And with the new cut-go rules and things like that, any increase for us means a decrease for someone else.”

Speaking to Brownfield at the World Pork Expo in Des Moines Thursday, he said strengthening and expanding the national animal vaccine bank, disease preparedness and response program, and the animal health lab network are fundamental to preventing and preparing for a foreign animal disease outbreak.

“With foreign animal diseases that have arisen since then, right now high-path avian influenza (and) for better or worse, post-COVID, there’s a better understanding of how interconnected we all are and the threat that something like a foreign animal disease poses to the food supply.”

And Bailey says that gives NPPC hope Congress will fully fund these important programs.