REPORT REVEALS LINKS BETWEEN FACTORY FARMING AND BIRD FLU

NEWS RELEASE
Embargoed until 00.01hrs, Friday 6 April 2007

FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF UK BIRD FLU - NEW REPORT REVEALS LINKS BETWEEN FACTORY FARMING AND BIRD FLU AND CALLS FOR REVIEW OF ‘CHEAP’ FOOD POLICY

A year after the first case of deadly bird flu was confirmed in the UK¹, Advocates for Animals has released a new report² revealing the links between the global factory farming industry and the spread of bird flu across the world. Hidden Harvest: Links between avian influenza and factory farming of poultry can no longer be ignored reveals the hidden costs of intensive farming of animals to human health, animal welfare and the environment, and calls for a review of our ‘cheap’ food policy.

The latest incidence of HPAI H5N1 bird flu virus in the UK was found in February among intensively-reared turkeys in a unit run by a major large-scale turkey producer in Suffolk. Although transmission of the virus by wild birds was immediately blamed for the outbreak, this soon turned out not to be the case. Instead it seems the virus had been imported to the UK on meat from Hungary, where an outbreak had occurred the previous month. The evidence indicated that standard intensive poultry industry practices and the high level of associated international transport of poultry products caused the UK infection.

Advocates’ new report reveals that:

• The spread of avian influenza from 2003 coincided with a rapid rise in poultry production in Asia. This rapidly increasing and intensifying industry is generally understood to be at the root of the current explosion of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).
• Factory farm conditions provide a hugely increased and less resistant host population for viruses to infect, and hence greatly increased opportunities for viruses to mutate into highly pathogenic forms or into forms that are easily transmitted to, and between, people.
• The outbreak of H5N1 infection in an intensive turkey production operation in the UK in January 2007 has shown that ‘biosecurity’ is a dangerous myth that cannot be relied on to prevent pathogens from either entering or leaving the poultry sheds and thus cannot protect animal and human health against the risks of intensive poultry production.
• H5N1 can be seen as a direct result of the drive to produce ever-increasing quantities of low-cost poultry meat.

Nearly 864 million chickens and 20 million turkeys were reared for meat in the UK in 2005, and over 6 billion in the EU25, the great majority in intensive production systems. Intensive factory farming systems are increasingly being exported from western countries to Asia and other developing regions of the world. Thus, the risks associated with the spread of bird flu are constantly increasing.

Advocates for Animals believes that:
•   Factory farming of animals is inherently unnatural and unhealthy and will always encourage infectious diseases, some of which can have disastrous consequences for humans.
•   International trade in animals, meat and other animal products is a practice whose potential dangers and wastefulness far outweigh its benefits.
•   The evident role of the global poultry industry in fostering animal disease and particularly in the spread of H5N1 avian influenza makes it even clearer that Europe must reform the way poultry are farmed.
•   The farming industry should abandon factory farming and develop smaller-scale (free-range or organic) that provide animals with space, opportunities for exercise outside and strong immune systems to enable them to resist disease.
•   Commercially successful alternatives to intensive poultry rearing and breeding systems (good free-range and organic systems) already exist and offer much better welfare. It is urgent that the Scottish and UK, and European broiler chicken industry as a whole, adopt these higher-welfare methods.

Hidden Harvest: Links between avian influenza and factory farming of poultry can no longer be ignored is being submitted to the European Commission, the Scottish Executive and the UK Government Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in response to its consultation on an Animal Health and Welfare Strategy.

Advocates for Animals’ Director, Ross Minett, says: “The spread of high pathogenic avian influenza across Asia and into Europe has highlighted the animal health and welfare costs of the increasingly global intensive animal production industry, and the consequences for people. With global meat consumption and production set to continue to increase, and an ever-increasing focus on driving down costs to produce cheaper and cheaper poultry meat, the risks for animal health and welfare, human health and the environment are growing.
We believe that our governments have a responsibility to proactively encourage the farming industry to move away from intensive to more extensive farming systems and to educate consumers and encourage them to purchase/consume less meat and avoid animal products from intensive systems.
There is a growing realisation that mass production of animal products over the last 50 years has very often been at the expense of animal welfare, environmental protection and, in some respects, food safety and public health. Surely we can no longer afford to ignore the risks associated with factory farming. It’s time for change.”

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Notes to Editors

For interviews, further information or photographs please contact Advocates’ Director, Ross Minett, on 0131 225 6039 or 07946 517 585

1 On Thursday 6 April 2006 a swan found dead in Scotland tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

2 Hidden Harvest: Links between avian influenza and factory farming of poultry can no longer be ignored can be found at: www.advocatesforanimals.org/pdf/HiddenHarvest.pdf.