Shutdown

lowa plant is first casualty in USDA meat processing initiative.

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Pure Prairie Poultry, which went into business with the help of USDA grants and loan guarantees, stranded growers in three states when it halted operations at its Charles City processing plant in northeastern Iowa. It was the first failure in a billion-dollar USDA drive to expand independent meat processing capacity, and it reverberated for weeks.

Growers in Wisconsin went on social media with offers to give away their chickens because Pure Prairie didn’t have the cash to feed them. The Iowa Department of Agriculture took control of 1.3 million broiler chickens on Iowa farms but chose to cull them when it could not find a processor. As many as 130 employees were laid off at the Charles City plant.

“I’m hopeful we can find somebody who’s willing to take [the plant] over and reopen it because obviously there’s a need,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at the World Food Prize symposium. The Biden administration has put $1.4 billion into 400 projects since 2022 with the goal of increased competition in meatpacking. A handful of packers dominate cattle, hog, and poultry processing.

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig was among officials who questioned the USDA’s fiscal prudence.

“Congress should exercise its oversight authority to ensure something like this does not happen again and that those responsible are held accountable,” he said. Speaking a week later, Vilsack said the default rate on USDA loan guarantees was “very, very low … I think it’s a 95%, 97% success rate.”

Pure Prairie Farms, a grower-owned corporation that is a holding company for Pure Prairie Poultry, purchased the Charles City facility in 2021. In October 2022, it received a $38.7 million loan guarantee and a $6.96 million grant from the USDA for its plan to expand processing capacity of premium organic broiler chickens. Pure Prairie Poultry ran out of money in September and halted operations.

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