Fowl Play: The Poultry Industry's Central Role in the Bird Flu Crisis

This article argues that it is not backyard or free-range poultry practices that are fuelling the current wave of avian influenza (avian flu or bird flu), as is often portrayed in the media and proposed by governments and international agencies. Rather, the article argues that it is essentially a problem of the transnational poultry industry.

The article discusses how images broadcast in the media focus on rural villages, markets, and wild birds flying across the sky, and rarely use photos of the transnational poultry industry. According to the article, the selection of images sends a message that bird flu is a problem of wild birds and backwards poultry practices, not modern industry. In this way, "the most fundamental piece of information needed to understand the recent avian influenza outbreaks gets left out of the picture." The article further points out that activities that aim to curb backyard poultry farming pose a danger to the food security and farming income for hundreds of millions of rural economically poor people, while providing more opportunities and profits for the large industrial poultry companies.

The article also questions the degree to which migratory birds are responsible for transmission, a factor in regulations attempting to ensure that poultry rearing is kept indoors. The article proposes that migratory birds are rarely responsible for transmission, and rather tracing the patterns of outbreaks have pointed to rail and road as more likely paths. In Laos, where there is very little connection between backyard poultry operations and the large industrial companies, but plenty of mixing with wild birds, there have been no widespread bird flu outbreaks like the neighbouring countries. "Laos is rife with free-ranging chickens mixing with ducks, quail, turkeys and wild birds. These are predominantly native chickens, which account for over 90% of Laos' total poultry production. If free-range farming and migratory birds are responsible for spreading bird flu, one would expect to find the disease raging across the country. This has not happened. In fact, the country's backyard farms have barely been touched." It is proposed that it is in fact the industrial farms that are the greater source of risk for avian flu outbreaks.

The article proposes that the media is quick to report on outbreaks based on facts generated by industry and government spokespeople, and that this has supported the common theory that smallholders and wild birds are the primary source of concern. The article also criticises the attempts by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to industrialise the poultry trade.

The article concludes that, "What people really need is adequate and enforced protection from the transnational poultry industry. This will take strong and concerted pressure from civil society, to cut
through the hype and hysteria, stand up for small-scale farmers and backyard poultry and start building food systems that put people before profits."