Times Union, Albany, NY
June 4, 2006
Reuters recently reported that a mild form of avian flu was discovered at a live-bird market in Camden County, N.J. Although not the deadly H5N1 strain found to date only in Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe, the incident has heightened concern over the vulnerability of America's $29 billion poultry industry.
And for good reason. America is a nation of chicken eaters. Average per capita chicken consumption more than doubled between 1970 and 2004, from 27 pounds to 59 pounds a year, outpacing turkey and pork, and rapidly gaining on beef. We need to harness our concern about avian flu to think critically about how all this chicken we love to eat is produced.
Chances are, the chicken served at your local restaurant, fast food outlet and child's school, or sold in your supermarket spent its short life cooped up with 20,000-40,000 fellow broilers in a "growout" house. Such operations typically are managed by a farmer under contract with one of a handful of poultry corporations. As long as strict bio-security protocol is followed and eggs and chicks used in these systems are not coming from infected regions of the world, these operations will remain safe.
An alternative to this dominant production method is one that more and more Americans are voting for with their food dollars. Citing reasons including taste, health, animal welfare and the impacts of industrial farming, more people are seeking "free-range" or "pastured" poultry. These birds spend much of their lives outdoors in smaller, more genetically diverse flocks.
For the moment, evidence that wild birds have infected free-range chickens with the deadly H5N1 virus is lacking. Yet governments worldwide and in some states are recommending restrictions or closure of backyard and free-range poultry production. "Chicken Little" is under attack.
GRAIN, an international, nongovernment organization that promotes agricultural biodiversity, claims there is little science-based evidence to support these policies. Data in its report, Fowl Play, suggest it is the highly self-regulated transnational poultry industry and illegal smuggling that aid global spread of the disease.
Last year, the Food and Agriculture Organization stated, "To date, extensive testing of clinically normal migratory birds in the infected countries has not produced any positive results for H5N1." The New York Times recently reported it is unlikely wild birds were responsible for early 2006 cases of avian flu in Nigeria -- none of the thousands of samples from African wild birds destined for Europe tested positive for H5N1. Mild forms of avian flu, as found in New Jersey, have not been shown to evolve to highly pathogenic forms in free-range operations. However, the GRAIN report cites studies suggesting that if a large confined flock is infected with a mild strain of the virus, its potency can evolve rapidly toward more pathogenic and transmissible forms, "capable of jumping species and spreading back into wild birds."
It is vital that global and domestic regulation does not thwart backyard and pastured poultry production. Not only have these systems shown a resilience against disease, they enhance biodiversity, provide environmental and health benefits, increase food security and keep farm families on the land.
As food citizens, we must think critically about what is at stake when regulators restrict how poultry can be raised. We can use purchasing power to support all farmers and keep production systems that are good for the environment and us. We need to resist losing our heads and jumping on the blame-the-wild-bird-and-roaming-chicken bandwagon.