Avian flu: “It smells of death in the village”, the west of France submerged

Rfast, invisible and devastating. Like a draft, avian influenza swept the entire poultry industry in Pays de la Loire. When, at the end of February, the virus was reported in a handful of farms located in Maché, between La Roche-sur-Yon and Challans, in Vendée, the story should have ended there, as it does every year. Then, “a gust of wind spread it very far, inland, and we ended up with a wave of contamination which spread to all of Loire-Atlantique and Maine-et-Loire, describes Christophe Labour, regional president of the poultry section at the FNSEA. I’ve been a farmer for 30 years, I’ve never experienced that! “.

The figures make you dizzy: in its wake, this “gale” has left more than 700 poultry farmers…