23/02/06
Compassion in World Farming calls on EU governments to
protect animal welfare and organic producers in the face of an
avian influenza threat.
CIWF is calling for any cull of poultry by EU governments to be
carried out swiftly, efficiently and humanely in the event of an
avian influenza outbreak.
The
organisation is also lobbying the EU Commission for a temporary
derogation to enable organic poultry and eggs to be marketed as ‘organic’ should
governments require farmers to move their birds indoors.
CIWF’s
Chief Executive Philip Lymbery comments: “The spectre of
avian influenza poses a double threat to producers of free range
and organic chicken and eggs. Their birds, like those incarcerated
in Europe’s factory farms,
could be culled en masse and avian influenza might force them to
move their birds indoors, this would cause financial hardship and
compromise their businesses, which aim for much higher animal welfare
standards.
“For these reasons, it is vital that the EU allows
both free range and organic chicken and eggs to continue to be
marketed as ‘free range’ or ‘organic’ if
birds are ordered indoors. At the moment free range producers have
been assured of a temporary derogation to permit this but organic
producers have yet to receive one.”
CIWF and its European
partner organisations (ECFA) have lobbied the OIE, the UN’s
Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Health Organisation
and EU governments to ensure international readiness for humane
management of birds affected by avian influenza and to prevent
the spread of the disease via poultry movements and poor bio-security.
The organisation fears that humane slaughter standards will fall
by the wayside as countries rush to destroy birds should avian
influenza spread to domestic poultry. This has already happened
in many countries where infected birds have been suffocated in
bags, burned or buried alive. Worryingly, the European Safety Authority’s
Animal Welfare panel has stated that such inhumane methods also
increase the risk of the disease spreading.
The 2001 foot and mouth outbreak
in the UK saw some of the best
animal welfare legislation
in the world being ignored
with many reports of animals
not being properly slaughtered
and surviving for long periods
in pain and distress. The 2003
avian influenza outbreak in
the Netherlands, another country
with relatively high farm animal
welfare standards, also involved
significant animal suffering that could
have been avoided.
Philip Lymbery adds: “Governments must ensure any emergency
killing is swift, efficient and humane. It is more important now
than ever before for consumers to support the free range industry
by buying its products. It would be a tragedy indeed if a virus were
allowed to wreck the humanity that free range has brought to farming.”
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