Northern Iowa — Iowa’s two US senators are questioning why Pure Prairie Poultry, which recently declared bankruptcy, was given tens of millions of federal dollars.
Senator Chuck Grassley says two years ago, the USDA handed the Minnesota-based company a near-seven-million dollar grant along with guaranteed loans of almost 39 million.
When the company’s plant in Charles City closed this month, it left around 50 farmers in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota without processing capacity or feed for more than two million chickens. Plus, another 100 Iowans lost their jobs. Grassley questions when it became apparent the company was going to fail.
Senator Joni Ernst says “Pure Prairie Poultry’s abrupt closure shows the importance of proper vetting and oversight at USDA,” and says those funds need to help producers, “rather than being flushed down the drain and harming entire rural communities.”
Grassley agrees.
Grassley was asked if he thinks the owners or managers of Pure Prairie Poultry did something wrong, or whether they should pay the USDA back.
Grassley says it’s the USDA that’s “responsible for keeping tabs on the taxpayer-funded grants it administers, but it clearly dropped the ball with Pure Prairie.”
He’s asking the agency to explain to Congress and the public “what went wrong to help prevent a repeat scenario.”
