Throughout the trials of the past five years; the pandemic, supply chain issues, and an outbreak of avian influenza, poultry farmers have been able to count on Dr. Jonathan Moyle, University of Maryland Extension poultry specialist, for personal assistance and quality educational programming.
The Poultry Science Association (PSA) honored Moyle with the Phibro Extension Award, recognizing five years of outstanding Extension programming. “This award, it’s not just for me, it’s for the people around me. To get an award, you have to surround yourself with good people and a good team,” said Moyle. “My team is competent, and they’re like a family. I’ve never had a team like this anywhere else.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, poultry production and associated products like eggs make up 48 percent of Maryland’s agricultural market. As the largest agricultural commodity in the state, working with poultry farmers is imperative to the economy and Moyle’s programming focuses on assisting farmers to maintain safe and healthy flocks of birds. “We’re unique in the nation in that we target the farmers, and not the production companies,” said Moyle, who helped growers during the influenza outbreak to ensure biosecurity requirements were implemented and followed.
Moyle, who grew up on a small farm in rural Idaho, has worked with poultry his whole life. “My earliest memories include chickens,” he says. After managing a commercial turkey farm and later, a breeder farm in Arkansas that was unfortunately wiped out by a tornado, Moyle returned to education to get his doctorate, all while working with his wife to raise five children.
“Through all of that, I’ve always had small flocks at home,” said Moyle. “My kids were in 4-H and they raised and showed chickens. We had a lot of fun with it.”
Moyle’s long history in poultry business management has allowed him to provide research and experience-based educational programming to Maryland poultry farmers. “Over the past five years we’ve been able to transition to virtual platforms, diversify our outreach, and we’ve started doing more on the international front to assist farmers with what we’ve learned here.”
Although poultry farming isn’t a perfect system, Moyle says he hopes to see the industry remain viable in Maryland. “We need to protect what we have and improve it,” he said. “And we are – we’re doing research that helps us to do a better job everyday.”
To learn more about the UME poultry program, go to https://extension.umd.edu/programs/agriculture-food-systems/program-areas/animal-science/poultry. To learn more about the PSA awards, go to https://poultryscience.org/About-Awards-2022.