HN51 - POULTRY INDUSTRY 'FACING DISASTER' - seems to be more concern for factory farming than human

Given the fact that this strain of HN51 is what is killing humans
already and highly pathogenic, there seems to be more concern for
factory farming than our own health!

" Farmers are on red alert, but yesterday they said the discovery of
more wild swan carcasses did not make the situation worse, as avian
flu still has not infiltrated domestic flocks"


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POULTRY INDUSTRY 'FACING DISASTER'
LOUISE VENNELLS

11:00 - 12 January 2008


http://tinyurl.com/yntdmr
The poultry sector in Britain could be wiped out by a "catalogue of
disasters" culminating in the latest bird flu outbreak, an industry
leader has warned.

Yesterday, officials were investigating more dead swans discovered in
and around the Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset, after three found on
Thursday tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease.

The results of the latest tests are expected over the weekend.



Twelve members of staff on the site are being given a basic flu jab
and a course of medication as a precaution, after it was thought they
could have been in contact with the birds.

The Health Protection Agency has said there is "almost no chance" of
humans catching the virus, which can kill birds within 24 hours.

Farmers are on red alert, but yesterday they said the discovery of
more wild swan carcasses did not make the situation worse, as avian
flu still has not infiltrated domestic flocks.

It is the first time the virulent disease has been identified so close
to Devon and Cornwall.

But John Riddell, chairman of the National Farmers' Union's South West
poultry board, last night painted a bleak picture of the sector's
future, and said poultry farmers were already going out of business.

"We thought the beginning of 2007 was bad because we had an avian
influenza outbreak in Britain - but so far, 2008 has just been one
disaster after another," he said.

Mr Riddell said the need to step up bio-security measures would cost
farmers money, and the industry had been damaged by celebrity chef
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's series of programmes urging people to
buy free- range, which aired earlier this week.

Mr Riddell said the chef's campaign could contribute to the poultry
sector dying out in the UK but cheap imports from countries such as
Thailand and Brazil, where bird welfare is not an issue, would fill
the void.

Mr Riddell, who farms in south Somerset, said poultry farmers were
already reeling from a 60 per cent rise in grain prices, while
producers had seen no rise in the price paid for their birds.

"This combination of factors brings us very close to being wiped out
as an industry," he warned.

Of more than 100 poultry farmers he had on his contact list in the
South West five years ago, more than half had already gone out of
business, he said.

Mr Riddell added that the free- range sector currently accounts for
five per cent of chickens consumed nationally. And he said most free-
range producers earned their main income by other means, and could not
hope to match the 800 million birds eaten in Britain each year.

Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall was unavailable to comment.

National Farmers' Union spokesman Ian Johnson said all poultry keepers
were facing economic pressure - particularly as the sector receives no
subsidy.

"There's a tremendous amount of pressure, and the margins they work to
are extremely tight," he said. "It only takes a very small breeze to
blow them on to the rocks. The problem is that at the moment,
everything is coming at them simultaneously."

Yesterday, Abbotsbury staff member David Wheeler, who is among those
receiving medication, said: "There's no reason to worry. Having said
that, we could lose one or two more, you can't predict. We know that
swans can be susceptible.

"We are just coping with the situation that has occurred.

"We have known about it for years. We have been monitoring and we
realised it could come at any time.

"We certainly didn't want it to come, it's not good news, but we are
going to deal with it."

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which has two
wetland nature reserves near Abbotsbury, said it would increase the
surveillance of wildfowl on its sites in Devon, Somerset and Dorset.

Restrictions in place in Dorset involve a control area which extends
about 15 miles (25km) to the South-East of Abbotsbury, and includes
the town of Weymouth, Chesil Beach and the Portland Bill headland,
while the larger monitoring area of some 20 miles (32km) also covers
the town of Dorchester.

The limitations, which will be in place for at least three weeks, are
also bad news for gamekeepers, as it means the shooting season has in
effect finished early within the zones.

John Mortimer, South West director of the Country Land and Business
Association, said: "Shooting represents a significant income stream
for many farms and estates.

"This ban will have a serious economic impact on the area."