The federal government has shown to have paid more than $230 million to California Dairy Farms to subsidize the loss of milk production resulting from avian flu. This is the amount the dairy industry expects to rise as damages are processed more.
The H5N1 bird flu has swept over 75% of California’s 1,000 dairy farms since August 2024, causing cattle to sick, leading to a sudden drop in milk production.
Farmers were able to receive relief under the USDA program known as livestock, bees, farm-farmed fish programs, or ELAP emergency assistance. The program usually provides support to farmers affected by wildfires, droughts and floods, but it was opened to dairy farmers last year as the bird flu began to destroy cattle.
US Department of Agriculture records show 644 payments were made on California Dairy Farms’ payments to 359 between November 2024 and June 2025, between 644 payments. The average payment per farm was around $645,000, ranging from $2,058 to Pereira Dairy in Visalia to $4.4 million to Channel Island Dairy in Corcoran.
However, these payments are expected to be much higher as more claims are filed and processed. Many of the payments issued in May and June are meant to occur in 2024, and it is suggested that more will continue to come.
The relief payments were obtained through a request for the Freedom of Information Act by Farm Forward, a nonprofit organization defending factory agriculture. The group claims that the subsidies will help support industrial-scale dairy products that perpetuate the spread spread of avian influenza.
“These are megaindustry businesses that are driving the outbreak,” said Andrew Decoriolis, executive director of Farm Forward. “Avian flu is spreading to the type of environment we pay to store.”
Anja Laudabo, chief executive of the industry’s largest state trade group, said the director of Western Dairy Western Dairy Dairy Dairy “Western Dairy Dairy is ensuring that the dairy community and its workers remain employed.
Jonathan Cockloft, managing partner at Channel Island Dairy, said his losses would exceed the $4 million he received while payments helped his farm suffer a 30% drop in milk production he experienced.
He said the virus caused cows to stop pregnancy and often prevented them from getting pregnant again. Dairy cows that do not give birth do not produce milk. In other cases, he said that the cows were unable to produce milk before infection because the breasts were so injured by the disease.
“I don’t know if the public understands it or not. This has had a huge impact on reproduction,” he said.
He also noticed that many animals had died. Especially last fall when the outbreak first hit, and when its newness was combined with the fiery heat of Central Valley, 10% to 15% of many California herds fell.
Tipton dairy farmer Joey Aierso received a $1.45 million subsidy for the outbreak on his farm last October.
He said the outbreak would cost more than $2 million and “milk revenue alone doesn’t include extra care costs over $250,000.”
And it does not cover the cost of dead cows – it cannot produce milk or sell for meat. According to Cockloft, the average dairy cow costs around $3,500.
Jay Van Lane, a spokesman for California’s Department of Food and Agriculture, said paying for the losses is “the most realistic way for producers to recover and avoid major disruptions in the food supply of these products.”
USDA officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but the former best USDA official who left the agency in January said it was important to provide dairy relief after identifying H5N1 bird flu in a small number of Texas flocks in March 2024.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event and we knew we needed to support the producers, and we knew they could get help from them quickly to help with the testing.
But Farm Forward ornaments etc. say these programs perpetuate an agricultural industry designed around including hundreds, if not thousands, of genetically similar animals in trapped lots. He also noted that the federal relief program does not come with strings, including disease mitigation and biosecurity incentives.
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist with vaccine and infectious disease tissue at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, said it would be a mistake to distribute grants to farms without trying to understand or investigate the practices they use to counteract the disease.
“What are they doing on the farm to prevent reinfection?” she said.
The USDA payment was based on a loss in milk production over four weeks. Some farms received multiple grants, according to data from Farm Forward. About half received only one payment, but 100 farms received two payments, 58 received three, 19 received four, and two received six separate payments.
One farm in Tulea County submitted four USDA payments per month between November 2024 and February 2025. On another farm, payments were extended between December 2024 and May 2025.
Rasmussen said it is likely that multiple payments have been made depending on the specific circumstances of the dairy farm involved.
Channel Islands dairy cockroft said he and other farmers saw a wave of reinfection and milk testing that remained positive for months. He said he knew the farm that had been quarantined for nine months.
If the herd is isolated, the animals are not permitted to move on site or off-road. In California, farms have been quarantined for 60 days after the initial virus detection. You cannot move out of quarantine until the test shows that milk is virus free for three weeks in a row.
Van Lane, a spokesman for the state’s agriculture, said the average quarantine time is 103 days. He said 940 of California’s 1,000 herds were not quarantined. Those 715 had previously been infected and released from quarantine.
However, even if the milk is positive, milk can still be sold on isolated farms. Pasteurization has been shown to kill viruses.
Relief payments are another indication of how the US government will support the agricultural industry, and some are considered essential to the national interest.
Daniel Sumner, an agricultural economist at UC Davis, said: “If we think about these payments to help people who are in need with taxes, then it’s not because their families are poor.”
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