Avian influenza outbreak: Battle over who pays slaughter compensation
Free-range egg production has increased the risk of avian influenza and chicken meat and caged-hen egg producers are no longer willing to share the cost. Here’s what’s changing.
CHICKEN meat and caged-hen egg producers have had enough of compensating farmers whose free-range flocks have been destroyed after coming down with avian influenza.
Until July the chicken meat and egg industries had shared the cost of compensating farmers for the loss of birds, no matter how they were housed or what they produced.
But that arrangement has come to an end, with Australian Chicken Meat Federation declaring it would no longer pay 60 per cent of compensation costs.
Five Victorian farms, with either all or at least some of their birds running free range, have come down with avian influenza, which is likely linked to cross-infection from wild ducks and other nomadic water fowl sharing pools of water during the wet winter.
Chicken Meat Federation chief executive Vivien Kite said the compensation cost-sharing would be honoured for the first Victorian egg farm depopulated after an AI outbreak was confirmed on July 31.
But Ms Kite said that arrangement would not apply to the other egg and a turkey farm that had come down with AI since, which will result in the slaughter of almost 500,000 birds.
“It’s no secret that for some time we have been advising that each industry picks up its costs of compensation,” Ms Kite said.
The growth of free-range farming has been linked to the rise in avian influenza outbreaks, with a team led by the Australian National University finding that shifting 25 per cent of conventional indoor farmed birds to free-range resulted in a 6-7 per cent rise in the risk of avian influenza outbreaks.
Victoria’s chief veterinary officer Graeme Cooke highlighted the risk last Friday, issuing a statement warning many species of wild birds carry the virus, which can “spill over into domestic poultry populations causing significant amounts of death”.
Caged-egg producers, such as Werribee farmer Brian Ahmed, say they’ve had enough of compensating free-range poultry producers, whose hens are exposed to AI-infected wild birds.
“Why should I have to pay for something that’s lacking in the free-range sector,” Mr Ahmed said.
“Free range is not a bad system, but it’s not designed for volume production. I blame the supermarkets who saw a higher margin in free range and demanded volume that pushed big corporations to free range.”
MORE
BIRD FLU TO COST EGG FARM UP TO $23M IN LOST REVENUE
‘No one knew it was coming’: Tongala cow abattoir shuts
The livestock industry and local community have reacted to Greenham’s closure of its Tongala cow processing plant.
Victorians want to feel guilt-free about eating meat
Research – to guide a Victorian Government-funded pro-agriculture campaign – has revealed how consumers feel about the state’s farmers and what issues need to be addressed.