WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), co-founder of the Senate Chicken Caucus and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke Friday to participants of University of Delaware’s (UD) Emergency Poultry Disease Response Program (EPDR) about the importance of preparing for global disease outbreaks, including avian flu that could affect global food systems.

Audio of the speech is available here: http://1.usa.gov/1RqR3HN

Excerpts from Senator Coons’ speech:

“I have been struck by the power of poultry to deliver protein to a hungry world, and its capacity as the way we move protein that is environmentally sustainable, that is economically producible and that can generate meaningful jobs from farm to plate in countries all over the world.”

“If we can fend off Avian Influenza and develop a better technology transfer and training, we can make an impressive and lasting difference for all the hungry people in the world who we are together hoping to feed.”

“As the world becomes more and more integrated, as people travel more and more freely…as millions of people travel across the world every day and as hundreds of millions of birds travel around the world every day, the very real threat of Avian Influenza gets more and more severe.” 

“It is our real hope that by applying the techniques you are hearing about today and the lessons you are hearing from folks that have been actively involved in managing this AI outbreak in the Midwest and West of the United States, that we will succeed in preventing it from becoming a global challenge.”

Senator Coons’ full remarks below:

“This is my second time speaking to the EPDR program, and it is exciting to me to take your questions and have a chance to talk about our shared interest and concerns about growing the poultry community and the poultry industry globally.

“As a very young man, I spent a semester at the University of Nairobi in Kenya, which really changed my life, and then worked in South Africa, for the South Africa Council of Churches for then-Bishop Desmond Tutu. So this was in ’84 and ’86 and ’87, and it began, for me, and interest in how the United States relates to the world, not just in agriculture, in trade, but in lots of other areas. I serve on the Foreign Relations Committee, and for the last four years, I chaired the Africa subcommittee. I also serve on Appropriations, which is the committee in the Senate that decides how we spend our money. I serve on three other Committees as well. 

“I trained as a Chemist as an undergraduate and I worked in private industry in Delaware for eight years before I went into the great adventure that was County government for ten years. I don’t know about your provincial or municipal or county governments, but there are very demanding, very difficult. Lots of work on sewers, on roads, on schools and libraries, the very guts of what makes communities work.

“Forgive the introduction, I am now going to try and work off of prepared text before I take your questions. Thank you, to Dr. Jack Gelb and Bob Alphin and Dr. Mark Rieger and in particular to the United States Department of Agriculture for their support. It’s USDA that makes this whole program possible. Without the partnership between our University of Delaware, Allen Lab and the particular leaders here, and our federal government, Department of Agriculture, this training would not be possible. So why don’t we give our United States Department of Agriculture a round of applause.

“Delaware is also a state where the poultry industry is very strong and has very strong interconnections. So this program has trained over 100 poultry professionals from around the world, and is I think an example of what we do best in Delaware, which is even though the companies and the growers compete with each other regularly, they also partner together, they work together, particularly when we face a challenge like Avian Influenza that is a fundamental challenge to the whole community. So I think what we do best, our politicians actually work together -- in Delaware, not the United States, just in Delaware – our industry works together at all levels, and our university is a key component of a system that allows us to respond to challenges in a cooperative way. So the United States, a free market country, is also one where you can see an example of really good close coordination.

“As I’ve travelled around the world in my five years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I have been struck by the power of poultry to deliver protein to a hungry world, and its capacity as the way we move protein that is environmentally sustainable, that is economically producible and that can generate meaningful jobs from farm to plate in countries all over the world.

“I recently visited Tunisia, Chad, Djibouti, Kenya, Senegal and I’m about to go visit Senegal, Ethiopia and Rwanda and Gabon to participate in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Conference. I’ve been to 55 countries over all in my many years of travel, not just as a Senator, and I’m really impressed by the compounding, positive impact that poultry can have. I don’t mean to disrespect pork and beef as other sources of protein -- I know a number of you are from countries that have a well developed cattle pork industries, but in terms of the environmental consequences, the number of jobs that can be created, and the ease with which it can be scaled up, if we can get the whole system supporting poultry right, if we can fend off Avian Influenza and develop a better technology transfer and training, we can make an impressive and lasting difference for all the hungry people in the world who we are together hoping to feed.

“I also believe deeply that the United States has an opportunity and an obligation to work in partnership with you and your countries to make sure that we are not just seeking market access. In the introduction, you were kind enough to reference my friend Senator Isakson, Republican Senator from Georgia – he and I chair the Chicken Caucus in the United States Senate. We represent a dozen states that have a strong poultry industry. And about 10 percent or more of all American grown poultry is exported. And I think that is a good opportunity for our farmers and for our community.

“But as I said, when I’ve had the chance to meet with ministers of agriculture and trade from other countries in Africa, India, Kenya, Nigeria and others, my goal is for us to work in partnership. For us to find pathways forward that create jobs and technology and capability in your country as well opportunities in mine. There are more than enough hungry people in the world, and there are more than enough opportunities forward for poultry in a rapidly growing world.

“So sometimes when you read articles in the American press congratulating Senator Isakson and me on forcing the South Africans to accept American poultry, or when you read the South African press accounts that say I’m a terrible person for trying to get poultry into South Africa, you have to recognize the three years of work that we’ve done has accomplished market-access for 65,000 metric ton out of a 2 million metric ton market – that is a very small amount that we are getting. My hope is that it will lead to a lasting partnership of exactly the type that this training shows, which is that we will share with each other experiences about the best feed, the best vaccinations, the best monitoring, testing techniques, the best design for poultry houses, the best ways for us to breed and to develop our flock. So when I met with President Boni Yayi last August, we had this exact conversation about how do we become not just export market opportunity in Benin for the United States, but partners where Beninois have the opportunity to grow opportunity and employment in Benin for the Beninois. And I think that is the approach all of us should have together, and I think that speaks to how Delaware approaches market opportunities for the United States as well.

“Look, right now avian influenza plays an absolutely vital role in our future together. As the world becomes more and more integrated, as people travel more and more freely – you all travelled here relatively quickly I suspect, and you will be going home – as millions of people travel across the world every day and as hundreds of millions of birds travel around the world every day, the very real threat of Avian Influenza gets more and more severe. And the possibility that it might that it might at some point mutate and become zoonotic and capable of affecting humans is something that we also have to take very seriously.

“So it’s my hope that in this training you have found some real friends and that you will stay in touch with each other as you return to your home countries, and that you have built real relationships with the staff and the leadership here in the university of Delaware and that you will help us to know how to be more effective, how to make programs such as this more successful and more sustained and more meaningful in the years ahead.

“There are current AI outbreaks in dozens of places around the world and in a few states in the Midwest and West, not here on the East Coast of the United States. It is our real hope that by applying the techniques you are hearing about today and the lessons you are hearing from folks that have been actively involved in managing this AI outbreak in the Midwest and West of the United States, that we will succeed in preventing it from becoming a global challenge.

“But only by working together will we succeed in helping each of you to develop your personal skills and strengths, in helping our countries together develop the resources that we need to feed literally another two billion people over the next 25 years. And those who are already living and not yet nutritiously fed, and then last to sustain a global economy that is based on exchange of each countries’ best gifts and best talents.

“So let me thank University of Delaware for allowing me to be with you for a few minutes this morning.”