Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie promises compensation to farmers who will be forced to slaughter their poultry.
Guest of RMC this Thursday morning, the Minister of Agriculture Julien Denormandie took stock of the avian flu epidemic which is hitting French poultry farms. “Today, 16 farms are affected by avian influenza in France”, said the minister, according to which the French authorities have started to order the slaughter of animals in the farms concerned, but also in the surrounding farms as a preventive measure.
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Invoking “A difficult decision” but necessary, Julien Denormandie assured that breeders forced to slaughter their animals would be compensated accordingly, as they had been last year to the tune of 80 million euros after the slaughter of 3 million poultry. As for the consumption of very popular poultry products during the holidays (capon, chicken, foie gras…), the Minister of Agriculture was reassuring. “There is absolutely no health risk from consuming poultry and duck products”, he recalled.
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20,000 farms in France
From the beginning of November, the health authorities had asked all producers in mainland France to confine their poultry in order to avoid contact with migratory birds potentially carrying the virus. France has around 20,000 poultry farms raised for meat, eggs or foie gras, of which the South-West is the main production sector.
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The virus was identified for the first time on November 26 in the North, in the town of Warhem where 160,000 laying hens were reared in buildings. In each case in breeding, the animals are slaughtered. Avian influenza viruses continue to circulate actively in Europe via migratory birds. Twenty-nine countries are now affected throughout the European continent, which has nearly 400 outbreaks in breeding and 700 cases in wildlife, according to the French Ministry of Agriculture. France has been affected by three bird flu epizootics since the end of 2015. That of last winter affected 15 departments and led to the slaughter of 3.5 million farm poultry.