‘Free-range’ label to stay when chickens locked down to contain bird flu
By Mike Foley
Chickens cooped up for three months can be labelled as free-range if there’s an outbreak of a deadly new strain of bird flu, the consumer watchdog has announced, as Australia prepares for the inevitable arrival of a virus that could decimate native wildlife across the country.
While various strains of bird flu have spread around Australia, triggering occasional egg shortages when flocks have to be destroyed to stop the spread, so far the virus has infected only poultry in Australia.
The consumer watchdog is reassuring free range egg and chicken meat producers that they can retain their marketing during lockdown orders. Credit: Bloomberg
But a deadly variant of the virus, known as H5N1, has spread to every continent except Australia, killing millions of wild birds and mammals.
The federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek says it is inevitable the virus will come to Australia, most likely via migrating birds.
When it does, farmers with free-ranging chickens and other poultry will be issued with urgent housing orders to lock up their flocks in a bid to preserve native wildlife.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced on Wednesday that farmers will still be able to advertise their eggs and chickens as free-range for 90 days after an order to lock them indoors.
“The ACCC is providing this guidance so that producers have no doubt about their ability to act expediently in the event an H5N1 bird flu outbreak does occur,” ACCC deputy commissioner Mick Keogh said.
Governments around the country are rolling out a $100 million federal funding package in a desperate bid to limit the scale of destruction and potential extinctions of at-risk populations such as black swans, swift parrots and even seals and Tasmanian devils.
The virus originated in the northern hemisphere and spread to South America in 2022 where it wiped out half of Peru’s pelicans within a few months of its arrival and killed 30,000 sea lions and 18,000 southern elephant seal pups.
In Australia, environmental officers will soon be vaccinating populations of endangered wild animals, breeding captive “insurance” populations of threatened species and picking up carcasses to limit the spread of the disease.
“We’re the last continent that this variant hasn’t hit. We’re doing our very best to prepare for it, but the simple truth is we can’t keep it out of the country,” Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said last month.
An outbreak of the less contagious H7 strain of the virus is currently circulating in NSW, Victoria and the ACT. Some free-range poultry farms have already been ordered to bring their flocks indoors to tackle the outbreak. However, these orders are typically targeted at an individual farm or a cluster of properties.
When the H5N1 virus hits, the ACCC wants all farmers to comply without fear of losing the valuable “free-range” label, which usually requires farmers to meet strict conditions.
BirdLife Australia chief executive Kate Millar said: “Once this strain of bird flu enters wild populations, it can be very difficult to control, and it can decimate wildlife populations very quickly.”
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