Prepare to bring free range birds in doors, warns NFU
UK - Free range poultry farmers are being told to make emergency preparations to house millions of free range birds should DEFRA order them inside over fears of avian flu.The Guardian reports that the NFU’s advice, sent to poultry farmers across the UK, is likely to anger the Soil Association which believes that there is no need to cause alarm by bringing birds inside for what could be an indefinite period of time.
“We need to be constantly monitoring the situation, but at the moment we don’t believe bringing birds in is appropriate,” the Soil Association’s Robin Maynard told the paper.
“You have a situation where you are being told avian flu could reach her in a year, or five or ten. Do farmers have to keep poultry inside all that time? If you do this you would be destroying the most successful part of the farming sector – the growth of free range and organic,” he added.
Source: FWi
19 October 2005
1 minute read
