BIRD FLU: Animal Factory farms blamed for the spread of bird flu worldwide.

February 28, 2006

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Animal Factory farms blamed for the spread of bird flu worldwide.

Factory farming and the international poultry trade are largely

responsible for the spread of bird flu, and wild birds are being unfairly blamed

for the disease, a new report says.

The report says the deadly H5N1 virus developed inside intensive poultry

units in Asia and has proliferated through exports of live birds and the use of

chicken droppings as fertiliser. Its publication by Grain, an agricultural

pressure group, follows an announcement that the virus has been found in a

turkey farm in eastern France. Though the farm was close to where two infected

wild ducks were found, all its 11,000 turkeys were kept indoors with no contact

with wild birds.

Dissident scientists accept that the flu began in wild birds, but say it

developed in the cramped conditions of Asian factory farms. Research published

in the official journal of the US National Academy of Sciences blames the

poultry trade for the virus spreading from China to Vietnam.

BirdLife, a charity, says the virus's spread across Russia last summer -

widely attributed to migrating birds - took place when birds were moulting and

unable to fly. It adds that an outbreak in Nigeria took place on a factory farm

far from migratory routes.

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

Published: 26 February 2006

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