Only high risk with Avian flu
WHEN it comes to Avian Influenza there is no such thing as a low-risk region – there are only high risk and higher risk areas.
That was the message chief veterinary officer Nigel Gibbens gave to free-range poultry producers who are based outside of the higher risk areas and are considering letting their birds out now that Defra’s amended Prevention Zone has been implemented.
Mr Gibbens said: “AI has spread north, south, east and west, in wild birds and domestic flocks.
“Essentially, everywhere that it has turned up in wild birds it has turned up in domestic flocks, but it hasn’t always led to flock to flock spread, so it is a pat on the back for you guys here.
“Why doesn’t it move from flock to flock here?
“By the time we have found it your biosecurity measures have stopped it moving.”
He added that the virus was developing in an unprecedented way and from the start of March, housing would not be mandatory for free-range producers in England who are not in a higher risk area.
Producers were urged to make realistic risk assessments based on the location of their farms and the ongoing risk of exposure to wild birds.
Charles Bourns, who was recently re-elected as chairman of the Copa-Cogeca working group on poultry and eggs (poultry farming unions group in Europe), said that it was clear that AI was going to be an annual event.
He pointed to German retailers who were backing their freerange producers, even though their packs were now over stickered as ‘barn’.
Chief poultry adviser Gary Ford said: “The NFU has been asking retailers for their continued support for free-range producers which will allow farmers to decide whether to continue housing their birds based on disease risk rather than financial concerns.”
Hatchery owner James Hook and broiler farmer Simon Barton both voiced their fears for the industry if no agreement is reached on employing EU workers on their farms, post-Brexit.
Mr Hook said the industry can survive AI but he did not think his business could cope without Eastern European staff.
Free range egg producer Phil Crawley said: “Eastern European staff are very important to our business.
“Personally speaking, we will automate some of our packing but you cannot automate the job of a stockman.”
THE Directors of Wright Marshall are disappointed to confirm that Chelford Market will hold its last sale on March 30.
The landlords at Chelford have entered into a conditional contract to sell the site to a development company.
Business will therefore cease at one of Britain’s best-known and most diverse auction centres, with the loss of a number of jobs, and with an expected significant impact upon the rural economy regionally.
It is understood that the purchasers require vacant possession of the Cheshire site prior to submitting a detailed planning application for housing. An extension to the current lease has been granted only until the end of April.
This is a bitter disappointment to the Directors of Wright Marshall, who have been striving for many years to provide a suitable site for relocation.
A planning consent for a new market at a site in Middlewich was obtained in March 2014, in conjunction with developers Pochin, but planners deleted sufficient of the original application to render the permission granted not viable.
Subsequent attempts to renegotiate terms upon that site have come to nothing, nor have the firm been successful in applications for grant funding from a number of sources.
Good progress has been made on other options recently, and the firm had been attempting to negotiate a longer extension to the lease at Chelford to enable completion of a deal to move the business to a new site to coincide with moving out of Chelford.
Wright Marshall, however, remain committed to providing an auction sales service to the agricultural and rural community, and are continuing with negotiations over a possible new site. In the short term, the existing Chelford business will be relocated to the firm’s other auction centre at Beeston Castle, near Chester, where plans are currently being put into place to accommodate the diverse range of sales currently operated.
A revised sales programme at Beeston from April, offering the best possible range of sale options for all Wright Marshall’s many clients, is available at www.wrightmarshall.co.uk
For further information, please contact: Gwyn Williams on 07785 350588 or Nigel Eckersley 07802 362064.