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Half of the free-range poultry raised for Christmas in the UK have died or been killed because of the bird flu epidemic, a poultry industry leader has told MPs.
Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, told the environment, food and rural affairs committee on Tuesday that free-range poultry had been hit “very, very hard”.
About 600,000 of the usual 1.2 million to 1.3 million free-range turkeys and geese raised for Christmas have already been “directly affected” by the disease. And of the 8.5 million to 9 million turkeys produced each year for the festive period, Griffiths said about 1.6 million had already died or been killed by the disease.
The highly contagious bird flu, which has been affecting Britain for more than a year and has gained momentum in recent weeks, is deadly to farmed animals, such as turkeys and geese.
However, Britain’s worst outbreak of bird flu also means that any birds left on an affected farm will have to be culled.
Asked what the collapse in the poultry sector would mean for the price of turkeys in the shop, Griffiths said: “I don’t know, and that’s really a question for retailers at this point. We don’t know how the interior retail space will be filled.
Paul Kelly of Essex-based Kelly Turkeys told MPs there would be a “big, big shortage” of free-range turkeys on the shelves.
The farmer, however, said he did not expect a price hike: “I think it will be just a supply issue rather than a price hike.”
There have been 136 confirmed cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 in the UK since the start of October, most of them in England, although the disease has now spread to all countries.
Griffiths said the number of cases in previous outbreaks only reached double digits.
Griffiths told the committee that more than a third (36%) of poultry farms were affected by some form of control designed to prevent the spread of bird flu, whether or not they were directly affected by the disease.
Kelly told MPs his business had already suffered three outbreaks, costing him £1.2m.
“It’s been devastating for farmers,” Kelly said, calling for an overhaul of the compensation scheme.
Farmers are compensated only for the number of fit and healthy animals when the authorities come to cull the remaining birds. However, poultry producers report that entire flocks are suffering from illness before a cool begins.
“The challenge for a lot of small seasonal producers who produce Christmas poultry is, they have their flocks on their farm and when it gets infected, those chickens will die within four days,” Kelly said.
Poultry producers are calling for the development of a bird-flu vaccine to be accelerated amid warnings that many of those affected are questioning whether to continue raising turkeys.
It comes after the British Free Range Egg Producers Association said this month that shortages and rationing due to bird flu were expected to last beyond Christmas. Tesco and Asda are among the supermarkets rationing eggs.
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