March 3, 2006

Report labels poultry industry as root cause of bird flu

If chickens had been kept in small scale poultry farms and not industrial sized factories, bird flu would not have spread as fast, according to a new report from GRAIN (Genetic Resource Action International), an international non-governmental organisation which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity.

The report exhorted international organisations to focus their efforts to control bird flu on factory farms instead of wild birds and backyard poultry as they are the prime suspects in spreading the virus through their trading networks.

The report pointed out that in Malaysia, the mortality rate from H5N1 among backyard chicken is only 5 percent, indicating that the virus has a hard time spreading among small -scale chicken flocks. H5N1 outbreaks in Laos, which is surrounded by infected countries, have only occurred in the nation's few factory farms. Cases of bird flu in backyard poultry, which account for over 90 percent of Laos' production, occurred next to the factory farms.

The evidence, from the Netherlands in 2003 to Japan in 2004 to Egypt in 2006, is that lethal bird flu breaks out in large scale industrial chicken farms and then spreads, the report stated.

The spread of industrial poultry production and trade networks has created ideal conditions for transmission of lethal viruses like the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Once inside densely populated factory farms, viruses can rapidly become lethal and replicate.

Virus-laden air from infected farms is carried for miles, while trading in these products spreads the disease through multiple channels such as live birds, day-old-chicks, meat, feathers, hatching eggs, eggs, chicken manure and animal feed.

Migratory birds and backyard chickens are killed by the virus but they play only a limited role in spreading the virus, says Devlin Kuyek of GRAIN.

The Nigerian outbreak earlier this year began at a single factory farm, distant from hotspots for migratory birds. In India, local authorities say that H5N1 emerged from a factory farm owned by the country's largest poultry company, Venkateshwara Hatcheries.

Researchers are also chastising organizations like the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which are not investigating how factory farms spread the virus but are instead using it to further industrialise the poultry sector.

The research said that despite all the evidence pointing otherwise, there are now greater efforts to ban outdoor poultry and phase out small producers.