Brexit is making the current record outbreak of avian influenza (AI) far more difficult to deal with according to the British Poultry Council (BPC).
According to the BPC, a year on from the implementation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement in January 2021, delays to cross border trade and increased costs with the EU have had a big knock on effect for businesses also struggling with AI, due to its third country status
When AI is found in an area, it is put into a control zone. These zones last for a period of 90 days. Since Britain is now a third country to the EU, controls dictate that no birds or meat from birds within those zones – and as of 15 January 2022 meat having ‘passed through’ them – can be exported into the EU during that 90 day period. In large rural areas like Yorkshire and Leicestershire, where disease is in high concentration, these 90 day zones end up overlapping, a consequence of which is that producers end up trapped in restrictions despite potentially having no cases of flu on their site. This jeopardises their ability to transport birds to slaughter or meat for export.
“With restrictions layering up, and with controls articulating that birds with no flu might not be able to be transported through a zone that covers main roads and motorways, there seems to be no end in sight for producers facing controls – controls that do not exist for EU members,” said Kerry Maxwell, BPC communications officer.
The BPC said controls should be risk-based and not pose a risk to bird welfare or compromise the industry’s ability to keep food moving. “This is a business-critical issue that is creating major barriers for Britain’s food heroes, the solution for which is a mutually beneficial UK-EU veterinary agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary rules on movements of animals and food products between Britain and the EU,” said Maxwell.
“If Britain’s poultry producers did not already have enough on their plate already with Covid and labour shortages, they most certainly do now with the unprecedented scale of this year’s bird flu outbreak combined with Brexit technicalities. Fortunately, the solution is pretty clear. Negotiating a form of mutual veterinary agreement with the EU will ease problems we currently face with the EU, not to mention from the EU to Britain when import controls take effect later this year. Until that is agreed upon, we can expect ‘teething problems’ to bite into the viability of exporting poultry meat producers until there is nothing left to chew.”