“Efforts by Agriculture Department to Reemploy Workers Linked to Bird Flu Containment Efforts”

OMAHA, Neb. – The Department of Agriculture is working urgently to rehire multiple employees who played a role in the governmental response to the persistent bird flu epidemic that has caused significant damage to egg and poultry farms in the last three years.

These workers were part of the several thousand federal workers who lost their positions following the advice of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to implement President Trump’s objective of simplifying and restructuring the federal government.

Republican Rep. Don Bacon said the administration should be more careful in how it carries out the cuts.

“While President Trump is delivering on his commitment to expose inefficiencies, corruption, and misuse of resources in the government, DOGE must be prudent in its decision-making process. Reductions in workforce should be approached carefully to safeguard essential responsibilities,” stated Bacon, who represents a pivotal district in Nebraska.

The bird flu outbreak has prompted the slaughter of roughly 160 million birds to help control the virus since the outbreak began in 2022. Most of the birds killed were egg-laying chickens, so that has driven egg prices up to a record high of $4.95 per dozen on average. The federal government has spent nearly $2 billion on the response, including nearly $1.2 billion in payments to farmers to compensate them for their lost birds.

A USDA spokesperson said the department “continues to prioritize the response to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)” and several key jobs like veterinarians, animal health technicians and other emergency response personnel involved in the effort were protected from the cuts. But some employees of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service were eliminated.

“Although several APHIS positions supporting HPAI were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters,” the department spokesperson said.

Politico and NBC News reported that the jobs that were eliminated were part of an office that helps over see the national network of labs USDA relies on to confirm cases of bird flu and other animal diseases. It wasn’t immediately clear how many workers the department might be trying to rehire and whether any of them worked at the main USDA lab in Ames, Iowa.

Trump administration officials said this week that the USDA might change its approach to the bird flu outbreak, so that maybe entire flocks wouldn’t have to be slaughtered when the disease is found, but they have yet to offer many details of their plan.