Turkeys dying too fast for farmers to get compensation, MPs told
British farmers are missing out on compensation for poultry killed by bird flu because the virus has become so deadly that it kills the birds before they can be culled, MPs were told on Tuesday.
Almost half of the 1.3mn free-range turkeys produced for Christmas have been lost in a cull of more than 1.6mn birds affecting 36 per cent of farms in the UK this year, the Commons environment, food and rural affairs committee was told.
Guidance from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, states that while the government can cull animals to control the spread of diseases, farmers “generally will not receive any compensation for animals that die before they are culled”. It also says that “for avian influenza [farmers] will only receive compensation for healthy birds that are culled”.
Christine Middlemiss, chief veterinary officer at the Defra, told the committee that the H5N1 strain of the avian flu virus “has turned out to be fit, very infectious. It takes a very small amount of virus to create infection in a bird”.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Arjun Neil Alim
