Thursday, March 23, 2006
Bird flu hits small farms, paves way to new disease
LONDON (Reuters) - Bird flu could spell the end for small poultry farmers and open the door to more diseases at intensive farms, campaigners said on Thursday.
Conservation, farming and agriculture campaigners said governments were responding poorly to the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus that has killed over 100 people so far because they had yet to accept that the outbreak started at intensive farms.
It was then spread by the trade of poultry, poultry products and poultry manure more so than by wild birds and chickens in backyard farms, which have become the focus for many governments’ campaigns to fight the virus’ advance.
“I don’t think you would have seen this spread if it wasn’t for the industrial type of farming that has been developed over decades and exported itself and its products,” said Devlin Kuyek, a researcher at GRAIN, an international group campaigning for sustainable management and agricultural biodiversity.