The Avian Flue should be yet another warning to the food consumer about how wrong our agriculture practices have become and the need for immediate change in order to avoid future and larger disasters.
Like the mad cow scare and the more serious e. coli outbreak in Walkerton, the Avian Flue is an indicator of what is wrong with our agricultural system. The conventional agricultural system has been driven by the requirement for cheep products in order to be able to compete on the international market. The objective of international markets for our agricultural products has come at the expense of the welfare of the animals and safety of the consumer. It is the pursuit of the US dollar that has resulted in the Canadian farm system with the full support of our governments to move rapidly from the family farm model to that of industrial or factory farming.
It is the factory-farming model that has been the cause of the severe outbreak of the Avian Flue in the Fraser Valley. It is the factory-farming model that results in the severity of the economic impact of the Flue. There has been no evidence that the Avian Flue was caused by wild birds. The Avian Flue first attacked in a broiler breeder flock in a barn that is almost totally environmentally controlled. The movement of the Flue among factory farms has been attributed to the movement of personnel from one farm to another. The Avian Flue was not found in any of the 33 back yard farms with outside birds in the original “hot zone”. It was only after the outside birds were visited by government personnel coming from affected farms that 3 of these flocks proved positive. All of the 33 flocks were destroyed with little regard to the birds or the owners.
In all likelihood, the infection came from within the poultry industry itself. Broiler Breeder farms get their stock from US sources and avian influenza in currently hot in some regions of the US. The disease moves rapidly through a flock once in one of these environmentally controlled barns where the birds are confined at high density and where constant antibiotic use results in a deficient immune system. The high concentration of these intensive factory farms in the Fraser Valley compounds the problem even more. Firstly, it results in the easy and rapid transfer of the disease from one farm to the next. Secondly when they decide to declare the whole Fraser Valley a hot zone it results in the needless mass slaughter of 19 million birds.
The organic community has offered an alternative to factory farming over the last 10 years and has been calling for the diversification of agriculture for an even longer period of time. The organic model that has been advocated for years is one of smaller farms with poultry raised in a humane way and the manures from the birds being collected and composted for use on the farm and neighboring organic farms. This model should receive prominence in the wake of the mad cow and now avian flue disasters. With an organic model for agriculture in British Columbia each region would have a viable number of small farms producing for a local processor or selling directly to the consumer. The local economies would be enhanced. Food security would be protected for each region. The manures would be considered a resource to the farms and their neighbors rather than a source of pollution. And yes, the cost of food would be higher. Taxes may be lower because we would not need the large government bailouts that are being used to save the industrial model of agriculture at the present time.
There would be other benefits as well. People would have the opportunity to see how their food is being produced. Reduced use of antibiotics in animals would mean more effective treatment of disease in humans. And the animals would be happier in their lifetime even if they were still slaughtered for human consumption. There are examples of this model in British Columbia. Over the Moon Farm on Saltspring Island and Jerseyland Organic Farm in Grand Forks are farms we should honor. Olera Farms and its grading station was another example before the Marketing Boards shut it down.
Rather than turn to the organic model as a way of avoiding such crisis in the future, the factory farm industry is using the avian flue outbreak as a means of attacking organic farms and the small back yard farmer that raises a few chickens. The kill asked for by the factory farm industry and ordered by the federal government will wipe out all the organic production in British Columbia save a few farms in the interior and on Vancouver Island. The destruction of back yard birds will wipe out most of the reserves of poultry genetic diversity in the province. There is no evidence that back yard and small organic flocks caused the problem or were responsible for its transmission yet the order is to destroy all these flocks. All that would be left standing is the mega barns that housed the problem to begin with. The government bailout of the industry would allow them to rebuild rapidly in the existing factory farm model that created and exacerbated the problem in the first place.
A small group of organic farmers recognized the threat and opportunity that avian influenza represented to their community. They turned out to witness the meeting between the federal and provincial governments with the representatives of the factory farms. One organic grower, Brad Reid, was also invited after insistence by the organic community. These growers carried a three-fold message to those in the meeting:
- Firstly, that bio diversity is the solution not the problem.
- Secondly, that the poultry industry should be down sized and decentralized.
- Thirdly, there should be no compensation to the industrial farm complex without changes to the factory farm model and recognition of the organic farm model.
The ordered kill and a subsequent bailout of the factory farm industry will only serve to have it rebuild in its own image. The bio diversity of the poultry stock will be decreased. The density of birds in barns will increase. The use of antibiotics and environmental toxins will increase. The concentration of factory farms in the Fraser Valley will increase. All these repercussions will leave the human population in the Fraser Valley more at risk of pollution and environmental disaster. The possibility of another out break of avian flue or a similar disease will be just as great and an opportunity to decentralize the economy of the province will be lost.
The consumer must realize the extent and importance of this issue. The industrial model for agriculture must be halted before we lose all ability to establish and alternative. When I wake up in the morning and hear that fish farms are not moving to ensure the protection of wild salmon stocks and that ostriches and emus will be included in the avian flue kill. I fear the worst. The industrial agriculture complex is rolling over all aspects of our food system.
We must stand up and resist this ordered kill. It has been asked for and manipulated by the factory farm industry. There is no evidence that the back yard flocks caused or contributed to the problem. Our birds share the same space as the wild birds and we have little to do with the factory farm complex. All who understand that it is the factory farm model that is the problem must rally behind the small back yard flocks that have provided us a healthy ethical food alternative. Write, speak out and organize against this kill. There is too much to be lost if we allow the factory farm model to continue on its destructive path.
Fred Reid
