On the first anniversary of the first known outbreak of bird flu in the UK, a new report reveals the links between factory farming and bird flu.

A year after the first case of deadly bird flu was confirmed in the UK when on Thursday 6 April 2006 a swan found dead in Scotland tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the Scottish based organisation Advocates for Animals has released a new report revealing the links between the global factory farming industry and the spread of bird flu across the world.

The report entitled ‘Hidden Harvest’ sets out a clear link between avian influenza and the factory farming of poultry and reveals the hidden costs of intensive farming of animals to human health, animal welfare and the environment, and calls for a review of our ‘cheap’ food policy.

The latest incidence of HPAI H5N1 bird flu virus in the UK was found in February this year amongst intensively-reared turkeys in a unit run by Bernard Matthews in Suffolk. Although transmission of the virus by wild birds was immediately blamed for the outbreak, this soon turned out not to be the case. Instead it seems the virus had been imported to the UK on meat from Hungary, where an outbreak had occurred the previous month. The evidence indicated that standard intensive poultry industry practices and the high level of associated international transport of poultry products caused the UK infection.

The Advocates for Animals report reveals that:

* The spread of avian influenza from 2003 coincided with a rapid rise in poultry production in Asia. This rapidly increasing and intensifying industry is generally understood to be at the root of the current explosion of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).

* Factory farm conditions provide a hugely increased and less resistant host population for viruses to infect, and hence greatly increased opportunities for viruses to mutate into highly pathogenic forms or into forms that are easily transmitted to, and between, people.

* The outbreak of H5N1 infection in an intensive turkey production operation in the UK in January 2007 has shown that ‘biosecurity’ is a dangerous myth that cannot be relied on to prevent pathogens from either entering or leaving the poultry sheds and thus cannot protect animal and human health against the risks of intensive poultry production.

* H5N1 can be seen as a direct result of the drive to produce ever-increasing quantities of low-cost poultry meat.

Nearly 864 million chickens and 20 million turkeys were reared for meat in the UK in 2005, and over 6 billion in the EU, the great majority in intensive production systems. Intensive factory farming systems are increasingly being exported from western countries to Asia and other developing regions of the world. Thus, the risks associated with the spread of bird flu are constantly increasing.

Advocates for Animals argue that factory farming of animals is inherently unnatural and unhealthy and will always encourage infectious diseases, some of which can have disastrous consequences for humans. Secondly the international trade in animals, meat and other animal products is a practice whose potential dangers and wastefulness far outweigh its benefits. Thirdly, the global poultry industry is fostering animal disease and particularly the spread of H5N1 avian influenza.

Advocates for Animals’ Director, Ross Minett, says: “The spread of high pathogenic avian influenza across Asia and into Europe has highlighted the animal health and welfare costs of the increasingly global intensive animal production industry, and the consequences for people. With global meat consumption and production set to continue to increase, and an ever-increasing focus on driving down costs to produce cheaper and cheaper poultry meat, the risks for animal health and welfare, human health and the environment are growing.

There is a growing realisation that mass production of animal products over the last 50 years has very often been at the expense of animal welfare, environmental protection and, in some respects, food safety and public health. Surely we can no longer afford to ignore the risks associated with factory farming. It’s time for change.”