UK CHIEF SCIENTIST MOVES FAST TO PREDICT DOOM
NOT SO FAST, SAY FREE RANGE FARMERS
In the past twelve months, free-range chickens and organic poultry have moved from the specialist shelves of UK supermarkets to front and centre. A little more expensive, but you fans of organic farming claim you can taste, and see, the difference in the quality of the cooked poultry meats.
Organic farmers are getting rich, and the 'battery-farm' producers have been watching these newbies drive a fat wedge into their profit margins as supposedly stress-free chicken raising techniques have become stunningly popular with the public.
They are prepared to more for something better.
But does the arrival of Bird Flu in the UK pose a serious threat to the farms where poultry are allowed to spend their days scratching in the dirt and wandering open fields?
From the UK's The Mirror : "Tony Blair's top scientific adviser yesterday warned that the arrival of bird flu may herald the end of organic and free-range poultry.
Sir David King said it was likely the deadly H5N1 virus will spread among the UK's wild bird population. That will mean more poultry flocks have to be kept inside to reduce the risk of infection from mixing with them.
"'It means organic farming and free-range farming would come to an end. It will change farming Sadly, that could be the end of free-range farm practices.'
"But one of the country's leading bird flu experts disagreed about the risk to poultry. Professor John Oxford called for urgent action to track down silent carriers of the disease, saying it was vital to discover how the swan found with H5N1 in Scotland had been infected. And he called on the Government to double the cash spent on testing labs."
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