Some unions are highly reassembled against the threshold set by the government, which forces farmers to confine their poultry after the detection of the virus in an operation.
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New Avian Influenza Alert: The Ministry of Agriculture has formalized the detection of a first focus of infection in a professional breeding, Saturday, November 27. The avicole exploitation affected by this highly contagious virus, located in the municipality of Warhem, in the north, near the Belgian border, has 160,000 laying hens. These poultry are claustred in a building without being caged, and their eggs bear the number 2, identifying the so-called “ground” farms.
Since the end of the summer, France had already declared four cases of avian influenza in wild wildlife and three in the middle of the territory. Knowing that 26 European countries are now affected by these viruses, with a total of more than 400 homes listed in breeding. As of 5 November, in the face of this progression of the epizootic in the bordering countries, the Ministry of Agriculture had set “high” the risk of bird flu. A threshold that now compels all farmers to confine their poultry.
This very strict settlement has been established as a result of the last bird influenza crisis, which had wreaked havoc in the southwest, center of foie gras production. Between December 2020 and May, nearly 500 farms had been contaminated and about 3.5 million volatiles, prioritized ducks, had to be eliminated. At that time, already, beyond the biosecurity measures in the farms, the chopper had fallen on the outdoor farms, with the obligation to park animals in buildings. Except that the rule had derogations. It did not apply to lots of less than 200 volatiles.
“A war against farmed farming”
This time, the constraint hardens. And arouses strong reactions. “This decision condemns all outdoor breeders to be out of the law or disappear, while nothing is done to regulate the massive flows of animals and people, orchestrated by the industrial sectors. It is the concentration. farms and flows that, as in the last crisis, allow the spread of the virus “, reacted the unions of the Farmers Confederation and the Family Operators (FashionF), very reassembled against what they feel “A war against peasant breeding”.
In the field, outdoor breeders must adapt. For Jean-Michel Schaeffer, President of Anvol, the interprofession of flesh poultry, located in Geispolsheim, in the Bas-Rhin, the henhouse is, for the moment, in sanitary vacuum. But, during the previous phase of claustration, between December 2020 and May, he raised, for three months, his chickens Red Label of Alsace inside the buildings.
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