Spreading avian flu
Free range birds not the problem says GRAIN report

by David Lindsay
Among organic farmers, commercial producers of free-range chickens, and rural dwellers who just like having a few hens scratching around in the yard, there has been much speculative grumbling about the role of industrial poultry companies in making avian influenza a serious global problem.
Now an international non-profit group has put some meat on the bones of the theory that factory farming is largely responsible for the recent series of outbreaks.
A report titled, "Fowl play: The poultry industry's central role in the bird flu crisis," was released Feb. 27 by GRAIN, a non-governmental organization which, according to its website, "promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge."
The report suggests governments, international agencies, and industry organizations have made backyard flocks a scapegoat for the outbreak. The authors claim restrictions on small-scale poultry production are not scientifically justified, and will have a devastating effect on the world's poor.
The report says while avian flu has existed in wild bird populations and small poultry flocks for centuries, the spread of deadly strains in Southeast Asia only became a problem when that region's poultry sector went through a period of rapid expansion and industrialization.
In Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam, the countries with the highest concentration of outbreaks, production increased eight-fold between 1971 and 2001, and China's production tripled during the 1990s.
"Practically all of this new poultry production has happened on factory farms concentrated outside of major cities and integrated into transnational production systems," the report says. "This is the ideal breeding ground for highly-pathogenic bird flu ­ like the H5N1 strain threatening to explode into a human flu pandemic."
Sources from a UK-based conservation group called BirdLife International are cited to counter the theory that migrating birds represent the greatest risk of spreading avian flu. According to BirdLife, the spread has generally followed trade routes, not bird migration flyways.
Among the practices that may have contributed to dissemination of the virus, the report lists: cross-border transportation of poultry products ­ including eggs and chicks; the use of poultry litter in animal feed; the use of poultry manure as a nutrient input for aquaculture; and the sale of worn-out factory layers to villagers.
Laos is singled out as a country that has avoided the major outbreaks of avian flu affecting other nations in the region. Laos derives almost all of its domestic poultry supply from small-scale, free-range production ­ relying on native breeds, and having almost no contact with large commercial operations. The handful of small flocks affected by avian flu were in the vicinity of industrial farms in the midst of an outbreak.
"The Laos experience suggests that the key to protecting backyard poultry and people from bird flu is to protect them from industrial poultry and poultry products," the report says.
GRAIN is especially critical of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which used to be a strong supporter of backyard poultry production as a means of ensuring food security in developing countries. During the recent series of outbreaks the FAO has joined other international agencies, such as the World Health Organization, in identifying backyard flocks as a major risk factor.
Such agencies now refer euphemistically to the need for restructuring of the poultry sector, which generally means regulating small producers out of the business and increasing intensive industrial production to replace those flocks. Many countries have banned outdoor poultry or implemented restrictions which make free-range or organic production uneconomical.
The report says large poultry companies now view avian flu as an opportunity to gain market share in the name of public health. These companies repeat the mantra of biosecurity, and blame external factors when outbreaks occur.
GRAIN accuses the FAO of failing to speak up about the costs of the continuing shift toward industrial poultry production ­ not only the loss of a major source of nutrition and income for many poor people, but the loss of genetic diversity as a few commercial breeds replace numerous well-adapted native breeds.
The report says mass culling in areas affected by avian flu also means no research is done to determine whether surviving birds in small flocks are resistant to the virus. GRAIN calls it "outrageous" that some researchers have instead focused their attention on developing genetically-engineered flu-resistant chickens to replace the entire global flock.
GRAIN is based in Barcelona, Spain, but it has a staff of 14 working around the world, including Devlin Kuyek, in Montreal. Kuyek says when the group was formed 16 years ago its main focus was biodiversity in seeds, because this appeared to be the most pressing issue in the wake of the biotechnology boom.
GRAIN first began to look closely at avian flu because of possible "bio-piracy" issues related to Chinese star anise, which Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche uses to produce the anti-viral marketed as Tamiflu.
A section of the "Fowl Play" report examines profits generated by this patented drug in the midst of the global bird flu panic, but Kuyek says the group's researchers were ultimately more concerned with restrictions being placed on backyard poultry production in developing countries.
"A lot of the policy response that we saw was targeting small-scale farmers," he says. "They were having a lot of difficulty."
When it released its report, GRAIN sent a copy to FAO Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf, with a cover letter summarizing specific concerns about his organization's kid-glove treatment of industrial poultry. Kuyek says he is not surprised there has been no response from the FAO, and he does not expect the report will influence policy at the international level.
"I'd be much more optimistic about what local groups could do," he says, adding that he hopes grassroots initiatives ­ possibly with the assistance of other non-governmental organizations ­ will help small-scale poultry producers defend their livelihoods.
Kuyek would also like to see a wider public recognition of the risks inherent in factory farming of poultry. "Any industry on that scale is going to have a lot of areas where the biosecurity can be breached," he says.
On the other hand, he says in some cases it is not the largest operations that represent the greatest threat, but the mid-sized farms producing poultry under contract for large companies, with little oversight. In some developing countries the electricity supply is unreliable, he notes, and without backup, this makes factory farming very risky.
Kuyek does not give much credence to the industry's claims of providing protein for the masses in regions where land is scarce.
"You have to look at who these large poultry farms service," he says, pointing out that many of the operations are producing for export, and therefore contribute nothing to local food security.

For more information
To read the entire GRAIN report please go our website, www.country magazines.com. The mailing address for GRAIN is Girona 25, pral., E-08010, Barcelona, Spain.