No relief in sight for avian flu clean-up costs
Thursday, September 11, 2008
by SUSAN MANN
Poultry industry efforts to implement insurance for farmers’ barn cleaning, disinfecting and other costs associated with avian influenza infections in time for the start of a new federal government testing program have failed.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s testing program for low pathogenic avian influenza (AI) in Canada’s commercial poultry flock is now underway after an almost three-week delay due to technical problems.
If a farmer’s poultry tests positive for low pathogenic AI, the infected premises will be quarantined and the flocks will be depopulated. Farmers will receive compensation from the government for the birds that are ordered destroyed but not for any other costs, such as cleaning, disinfecting and business interruption. Quarrantines will also extend to operations within a three-kilometre radius of the infected premises. Those farmers will have to submit birds for testing, provide the CFIA with weekly mortality and production statistics and participate in testing in cases of suspicious clinical signs. The flocks will have to test negative for AI before being shipped for slaughter.
Chicken Farmers of Ontario chair Bill Woods says it was hoped that Chicken Farmers of Canada would have some type of insurance program for farmers “but that’s not going to be ready and in place.”
CFO then hoped that the Ontario Livestock and Poultry Council’s project to develop insurance for costs related to AI outbreaks that aren’t covered by governments, such as barn cleaning and disinfecting, business interruption and incidentals fees, like vet bills, would be further along so farmers could buy that insurance. But it likely won’t be available until later in October or November.
“We looked at doing something ourselves but the risk was too great,” says Woods.
Six to eight farms across Canada were tested during the first week of the program launched at the end of August. Private vets are taking the blood samples which are submitted to the CFIA’s lab for foreign animal diseases in Winnipeg for analysis. Testing continues until the end of October and possibly into November.
Included in this year’s sample are heavy roasters, spent layers and turkeys. “We want to target birds that are at the end of their production,” says Andre Vallieres, CFIA’s epidemiologist and scientific adviser. “We have a better indication of the presence of a virus when birds are older.”
Targeting these birds also means in cases where AI is found and the CFIA has to implement controls, the impact “will be less severe for that farm,” he explains.
The low pathogenic AI testing is part of the Canada’s Notifiable Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance System, designed to meet current World Organization for Animal Health guidelines and new requirements from the European Union that begin January, 2009. The EU requires Canada and other countries to have an AI surveillance system in place so they can continue to have a market for poultry products going to and through EU-member countries.
Preliminary survey results will be presented to the EU in December to ensure the border is kept open for Jan. 1, 2009, Vallieres says, while the final report will be presented in March, 2009.
Initially the plan was to test 1,000 farms across Canada. The CFIA reduced the number to 700 to 800 farms nationwide after it completed demographic studies to determine how many farms were expecting to send birds for slaughter.
Despite two AI outbreaks in Canada, one in B.C. and one in Saskatchewan, Vallieres says they don’t expect “this low pathogenic avian influenza to circulate too much. But we don’t know because we haven’t done this type of survey.”
It isn’t known yet what kind of survey will be done next year. The design of next year’s survey will depend on this year’s results and any new regulations from the EU. One thing is certain though – on-farm avian influenza testing will now be required yearly. BF