On Wednesday, the House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee heard several bills related to Minnesota's captive cervidae industry--and comments about the effort to control the Chronic Wasting Disease in both captive and wild herds.
At one point, in the discussion of HF3903, sponsored by Rep. John Burkel, R-Badger, Representative Dale Lueck made a startling claim:
. . . I want to remind the committee, particularly those who have spent some time on the agriculture side and the history of the Board of Animal Health: we had a huge buy out program in Northwest Minnesota for livestock producers that were caught up in the tuberculosis situation when the state lost their TB-free status and we had extreme restrictions on where cattle could move, that type of thing. So please disregard the comment that one of my fellow committee members made about this--there's no precedence for this--yes there is a precedence--and this was--frankly had nothing to do with the tuberculosis in the cattle. We knew how to find it. This was to protect the wil[d?], the whitetail deer.
As you remember, we had for a short time, tuberculosis endemic to the whitetail deer up in the Skime and the four corners area. So we actually bought out livestock producers, asked them to stop, sell their herds, get rid of the homeworks, refrain from that profession, in the interest of protecting the whitetail herd. . .
Here's the Minnesota House Information Services YouTube (the video will scroll to Lueck's remarks, begin, then stop. The YouTube of the meeting can be viewed here.
Curiously, the bill that was being heard at that moment wasn't about a buyout. Rather, as Session Daily's Brian Hall reports in White-tailed deer farmers could get financial help after feeling impacts of movement bans:
Chronic wasting disease has forced the Department of Natural Resources to impose movement bans on farmed white-tailed deer in Minnesota.
But the bans have impacted possible farm revenue.
HF3903, sponsored by Rep. John Burkel (R-Badger), would appropriate $1 million to the Department of Agriculture to reimburse farmers for expenses and lost revenue due to the temporary movement bans.
Payments of up to $10,000 would be on a first-come, first-served basis. . . .
“Whatever our personal views on deer farms are at the moment, and the oversight and regulation of these farms and what are the best possible solutions to invest in the future of deer farming in Minnesota going forward, I think it’s incumbent upon us to alleviate some of this financial pressure that the state of Minnesota, and particularly the Department of Natural Resources, have forced these small farms to endure,” Burkel said.
The DNR created a temporary movement ban in Douglas County in December 2019 after discovery of chronic wasting disease at a white-tailed deer farm.
Another instance of the fatal, neurological illness was found at a white-tailed deer farm in Beltrami County in May 2021 and led to another ban. This instance received particular attention when it was alleged there was disposal of farmed, disease-contaminated deer carcasses on public lands. This ban included an exception for movement necessary for slaughter.
A discovery of the disease at a white-tailed deer farm in Wisconsin in October 2021, led to another DNR ban on movement except if necessary for slaughter or to transport deer through the state to an area outside of Minnesota. Set to expire on April 11, 2023, the ban was rescinded in December 2021.
“All three times the DNR enacted movement bans was in reaction and response to CWD-positive deer in deer farms within the state or out of the state,” said Robert Gorecki, a regional enforcement manager with the DNR. “I just want to remind the committee that that is the reason why we’re doing that. It isn’t through no fault of anybody, not trying to point anything out to any particular person, but it is in response to the deer farm and the deer farm industry and the movement of potentially CWD-positive deer.”
“Although the testimony is compelling, it would also set a dramatic precedence for compensation for various actions needed to respond to either a pandemic or a disease outbreak,” said Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul). “I don’t think we want to go there.”
That's what Hansen was responding to. We do not know why Lueck was mudding the water. But a look at the state's response to Bovine TB beginning in 2015 shows a much different agenda that what Lueck suggests.
Was Minnesota's Bovine TB eradication effort conduct to protect white-tailed deer?
Did the state of Minnesota only target beef producers after the state's Bovine TB outbreak began in 2005? Doesn't look like it.
The efforts of the swift action by the Board of Animal Health and the Department of Natural Resources weren't to "protect the whitetail herd" or discriminate against cattle producers.
Rather, it was swift and decisive action to eliminate the disease itself.
The cattle herds were bought out by the Board of Animal Health--after the Minnesota legislature passed a law funding the buyout--while the Department of Natural Resources conducted "aggressive disease management actions designed to eliminate as many deer as possible from a 164-square-mile disease management zone."
We have to wonder whether the spread of CWD in Minnesota would have been deterred had the state acted with as much alacrity--rather than embracing the "poor deer farmers" narrative.
As the DNR noted in Successfully managing bovine TB in wild deer:
Minnesota's disease management work set an international example on how to successfully respond to, manage and control a disease outbreak that significantly impacted wildlife and domestic cattle.
In a phone interview, Minnesota State Veterinarian Beth Thompson agreed that the swift action to reduce both cattle and wild deer populations at the time were efficacious in stamping out Bovine TB. She cited the current situation of Bovine TB in the State of Michigan as a counter example.
We took a look at that--and it doesn't seem good for cattle farmers or deer, wild or captive. In February, Michigan Live reported in Bovine TB testing of wild deer wraps up after disease found at Michigan cervid farms. Michigan has a long-running bovine TB zone in the northeast Lower Peninsula, where infected wild deer are common. The challenge for regulators and farmers has been to keep the sickened free-ranging deer from infecting livestock animals, whether cattle or deer, and vice versa. Read the latest report here.
In Successfully managing bovine TB in wild deer, the Minnesota DNR reports:
Eight years of monitoring and aggressive management of wild deer allowed DNR's wildlife health program to accomplish what many believed was not possible: effectively eliminate bovine tuberculosis in wild deer by reducing the disease's incidence to an undetectable level.
In 2005, bovine TB was first discovered in area cattle operations and wild deer near Skime in northwestern Minnesota. The discovery led to aggressive disease management actions designed to eliminate as many deer as possible from a 164-square-mile disease management zone. Reducing the area's deer population as close to zero as possible was necessary to control disease transmission to other deer and area livestock.
DNR halted sampling of hunter-harvested deer for the disease after the 2012 season, which marked the third consecutive year that no deer tested positive for bovine TB. Conservative deer hunting regulations were implemented in following years to rebuild the area's deer population.
Minnesota's disease management work set an international example on how to successfully respond to, manage and control a disease outbreak that significantly impacted wildlife and domestic cattle.
Bovine TB is a progressive, chronic bacterial disease that affects primarily cattle, but also deer. The disease compromises the immune system and can lead to death from related causes.
If left unchecked, the disease likely would have spread and established itself within the deer population. The result would have been a permanent risk of continuous deer-to-deer or deer-to-livestock transmission of the bovine TB in an ever-enlarging area.
Were beef producers affected? For sure, the Board of Animal Health only offered contracts to beef producers, while the DNR reduced the wild deer herd inside the zone.
In July 2008, Minnesota Public Radio's reported Bovine TB buyout program will remove 6,800 cattle:
The Minnesota Board of Animal Health says 6,800 cattle will be slaughtered or removed from a region in the northwestern part of the state that has been infected with bovine tuberculosis.
The agency says it received 45 buyout contracts from cattle producers who will get $500 per animal to slaughter their herd, plus $75 annually for each animal until the area regains its TB-free status.
The cattle must be slaughtered or removed from the area by the end of January. Those that are removed must meet specific testing requirements.
Assistant Agriculture Commissioner Joe Martin says the buyout is a "significant step" toward eradicating bovine TB from the area. . . .
How can deer farmers recover losses?
Moreover, the overall claim that deer farmers currently have no means of being renumerated from the consequences of fighting CWD seems incorrect.
In fact, a federal program exists--and has been used in the state of Minnesota; moreover, this tool appears to pay deer farmers who enroll the USDA’s livestock indemnification program are compensated by the value of each infected animal, rather than a flat $500 payment beef producers.
In March 2020, Tony Kennedy reported at the Star Tribune in Taxpayers paid more than $500,000 for deer farm buyouts the last three years:
American taxpayers gave a total of more than $510,000 to deer farmers in Minnesota and Wisconsin to wipe out captive herds infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD) in 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to records released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The expense increased each year, growing to $270,956 last year. The Star Tribune obtained the payment data under the Freedom of Information Act, but the USDA declined to detail the cases or identify who received the money.
According to the data, Minnesota deer farmers received $93,616 in 2017, $20,195 in 2018 and $128,926 last year — the largest sum for either state in the three-year period. Deer farms in Wisconsin collected a total of $270,115 under the federal indemnity program for captive deer and elk over the same three years, records show. (There were no buyouts in Wisconsin in 2017.)
Former deer farmer Bruce Hoseck of Winona, Minn., declined to say how much money he received from the USDA in exchange for depopulating his herd in 2018. CWD was discovered inside his enclosure during mandated testing of a deceased 3-year-old buck in November 2017. In December of that year, a second deer carcass at the farm tested positive for the disease.
Hoseck said he joined the USDA’s livestock indemnification program in 2018 at the urging of state officials and because he was nearing retirement. By accepting money from the agency, he agreed to have his small herd of white-tailed deer killed and tested for CWD. All seven deer remaining in Hoseck’s herd tested positive for the disease and the state Department of Natural Resources blamed Hoseck’s farm for spreading CWD to wild deer outside his fence.
Hoseck said he was impressed with the USDA’s valuation process — assigning buyout values for each individual deer. Antler size and pedigree were two notable factors in the appraisals, he said.
“I was satisfied with what they offered,” Hoseck said. “There were no negotiations.”
John Zanmiller, a lobbyist and spokesman for Whitetail Blufflands Association, a deer hunting group in southeastern Minnesota, said the USDA herd buyout program for infected deer farms is “like a dose of nasty medicine.”
For management of CWD, he said, it’s critical to kill captive deer herds infected with the disease. But some hunters wonder why the expense falls to taxpayers, Zanmiller said.
“Where’s the deer farmer’s contribution?” Zanmiller asked. “The buyouts promote the idea of private wealth at public expense.” ...
It's noteworthy that the captive deer are appraised using a much different system than the Board of Animal Health used for purchasing herds back in the Bovine TB clean up.
We were sent a copy of the buyout contract by the Board of Animal Health:
Contract for Buyout uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd
Representative Lueck mentions the flat fee later in the hearing.
A blast from the past about deer farms
Perhaps one of the most ironic items in the hearing is Heintzeman going on and on about Democrats harboring ill will toward deer farmers--with Tim Miller riding his conspiracy notion that there are those among Minnesotans who want to ban all livestock farming. Back in October 2021, we looked at that malarky in State rep Tim Miller: MN state public officials beholden to radical anti-livestock enviro groups. We discovered that Hansen, for example, works with southeastern Minnesota Amish livestock producers to sell their meats. Clearly a threatto agricutlure.
All Republicanshave ever heard from DFLers is regulation, regulation, regulation, which sounds like a rote campaign slogan. We're not so sure a lack of regulations dealing with the farming industry is so noble, given the government funding available to farmers.
But Heintzeman's notion of buying out deer farms isn't new--as much as he accuses DFLers of being solely obsessed with single-minded about heavy-handed regulations.
In 2018, Hansen and Roseville DFLer Jamie Becker Finn did introduce HF4447--never got a hearing--which included voluntary deer farm buyout language:
Sec. 6. VOLUNTARY HERD BUYOUT; APPROPRIATION. $....... in fiscal year 2019 is appropriated from the general fund to the Board of Animal Health to offer a herd buyout payment to the owner of each herd of deer registered under Minnesota Statutes, section 35.155. The board must pay no more than $....... per animal, with each animal disposed of as determined by the board. By October 1, 2018, an owner must accept or decline the buyout offered by the board under this section. A participating owner must sign a contract with the board certifying that the owner will not have or allow any wild or farmed Cervidae to be located on the premises for at least ..... months and must record a corresponding deed restriction with the county recorder or registrar of titles. A participating owner who violates the buyout contract must repay all money received under this section and is subject to appropriate penalties under Minnesota Statutes, chapter 35. For purposes of this section, "deer" means white-tailed, red, fallow, mule, Sitka, and any other species of deer farmed in Minnesota.
The language from the Heintzeman bill, HF3684:
$....... in fiscal year 2023 is appropriated from the general fund to the commissioner of agriculture to offer a buyout payment to the owners of farmed white-tailed deer registered under Minnesota Statutes, section 35.155. The commissioner must establish buyout payment amounts and criteria, with each animal disposed of as determined by the Board of Animal Health. Owners have until October 1, 2022, to accept the buyout offered by the commissioner under this section. A participating owner who subsequently possesses farmed white-tailed deer or otherwise violates the buyout contract must repay all money received under this section and is subject to appropriate penalties under Minnesota Statutes, chapter 35. This is a onetime appropriation.
The differences might seem different-- but they are significant. The Hansen bill keeps the buy-out under the oversight of the BAH, while Heintzeman drags the Minnesota Department of Agricuulture into the mix. While leaving the payment system more flexible, Heintzeman's language is also restricted to just one species, the white-tailed deer.
We do wonder, however, why Heintzeman spent time on anti-DFL partisan screeds, rather than mentioning Hansen's earlier legislation. However, since the bill was never heard in any committee, perhaps he missed it. In 2018, the conservationist, farmer and hunter released this Statement: Rep. Rick Hansen Unveils Plan for Voluntary, White-Tail Deer Farm Buyout:
“Chronic Wasting Disease has been a slow moving, persistent problem in Minnesota and elsewhere around our country. However, its accelerating presence in the captive and wild whitetail herd is a threat to our environment and economy. It is increasingly clear that we need to take every step we can to prevent the spread of this horrible disease. With the unknowns of this disease, preventing expansion of infected deer throughout is not only prudent, but necessary. By offering deer farmers, a voluntary option, a fair price for deer, we can reduce risk and benefit our state. Minnesotans expect us to take every action we can to stop Chronic Wasting Disease and this is one step in delivering that for them.”
About those deer farmers
To listen to the emotional testimony of the deer farmers on the Burkel bill, you'd think the industry is in full compliance with all the rules they're supposed to follow. Those who wonder if there's another side to that story might review the 2018 Office of the Legislative Auditor's report Board of Animal Health’s Oversight of Deer and Elk Farms.
There's more in the report the MN DNR & BAH transmitted in February, Concurrent Authority Regulating Farmed White-tailed Deer.
Map screenshot: From Tri-State Livestock News, Minnesota’s Split State Status approved.
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