Poultry sector faces bird flu ‘wipe out’
THE poultry sector faces an out-andout fight for survival if avian influenza was ever to take a hold on farms across Scotland – that’s the stark warning from NFU Scotland’s poultry working group chair, Robert Thompson.
Mr Thompson said this week that it faced ‘a wipe out’ if more measures were not put in place to slow the spread of the disease.
Speaking to our sister title the Scottish Farmer, Mr Thompson said: “If it keeps going as it is, it is going to be a wipe out. We were up to 105 cases in the UK last night since the start of October. We need a housing order for our birds as part of a package of measures to increase biosecurity.”
And it is already in Scotland. The highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 has been confirmed at Turriff and Huntly, in Aberdeenshire; Coalhall, in Ayrshire; and Grimbister and Tankerness, in Orkney.
A protective zone has been set up surrounding all those premises, and there is a surveillance zone at Great Bernera, Isle of Lewis. There have also been cases in the wild bird population reported in across the Highlands and Stirlingshire.
At the start of this week, England imposed a housing order for all poultry, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland did not. Mr Thompson is pleading with the Scottish Government to copy England in setting up a housing order to keep all poultry indoors.
“We are just not getting through to the Scottish Government,” he said.
“It is not just the housing order, but it is an important step in a package of measures to fight the disease. The birds should be housed to keep away from the wild population, but the government is going off at a different canter. The industry is horrified.”
To make matters worse, insurers appear to be backing away from covering the costs of any bird flu outbreak. He explained that many were pulling out and those still offering cover are setting a 40 per cent excess and more than doubling some fees.
There is a national compensation scheme which covers the value of birds destroyed in any outbreak, but it does not stretch to covering lost income and continuing overheads in broiler and layer units.
He explained: “It is expensive and takes a long time to get back up and running after an outbreak. I seriously think that some businesses will leave sheds empty until the situation settles down. Going forward, people just can’t afford to take the risk. Many could sit empty for a couple of years until new birds are put in.”
The impact of the disease can already be seen on the shelves, with egg shortages and the rising price of chicken meat in shops.