Bird flu payments hit £3m

THE Scottish Government has shelled out more than £3m in compensation to the poultry sector as it continues to battle with losses to bird flu.

Between October last year until January 25, it had paid out £ 3,085,073, which included compensation to owners and direct costs at sites to control disease and prevent its spread.

Compensation alone, was £ 1,761,516. In total, 303,000 commercial birds had either succumbed to avian influenza, or been culled as contiguous on 18 premises across Scotland.

In the last week, disease outbreaks were confirmed in units in Tain, Stranraer, Clackmannanshire and Grantown-on-Spey, building on recent clusters in the North-east of Scotland.

The disease is putting the brakes on investment in the poultry sector as this week agricultural planning consultants, Ian Pick Associates, said the sector was stagnant and was ‘increasingly pondering its own future.’

Ian Pick said: “At the start of this year, I had seen the lowest number of applications for free-range egg housing than I have seen during 17 years of being in this business. From what we might call its peak in 2010, where we were running up to 50 applications at any one time, by contrast, we currently only have two live planning applications going through and one appeal.”

He put this down to the fact that egg production is just not making the margins required, with some contracts paying less than the cost of production.

“We have seen many farmers get their fingers burned,” he said, adding that other aspects seriously curtailing applications were the cost of buildings, which increased well above inflation.

“Brexit, the war in Ukraine and inflation have led to phenomenal increases and hefty increases in the cost of steel, wood, equipment and concrete have huge impacts on build costs,” he pointed out. “Whereas a year ago the cost to build a 32,000head poultry shed would be around £1.2m for example, that is now more like £1.7m.”

Meanwhile, the government has introduced egg labelling for English free range flocks which had to be housed inside during the ongoing crisis. From this week, eggs originating from free range flocks in the East of England – Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Essex – will need to be labelled as barn eggs. The concession will apply to the rest of England from February 27, which is in line with egg marketing standards regulations.