HPAI Ban Impact on Broiler Chicken

Canada can, and should learn some lessons from the 2015 HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) infection in the North American poultry industry.  Will we?  That remains a big, important question without a good answer.

What is the impact, on US and Canada, from HPAI and the resulting bans on US chicken by CFIA?

Numerous reports show a devastating impact on the US poultry industry.  One third of US egg layers were lost to HPAI, by either disease or culling to stop the spread of the disease.  Meatingplace reports that 5 major broiler chick hatcheries are breaking eggs (ie. destroying their eggs) rather than hatching them for a market that no longer exists.

At the height of the HPAI outbreak, 57% of US broiler production was banned from Canada due to HPAI.
As of Sept. 1st, 2015 CFIA updated its ban on all chicken associated with 8 remaining US States, removing California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington as being clear of HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza).  Today, 34.6% of the US broiler production remains banned from Canada.

It's not just Canada that has banned US chicken.

The export market for US broiler chickens has disappeared due to HPAI bans on US chicken exports.

JOC.com reports that 20% of the prior US broiler chicken export market has disappeared, mainly due to HPAI.  Global Meat News reports that this loss is worth $390 million per year.  Ouch!

Businesss Insider reports that total bans of US chicken (whether the State was HPAI infected or not) have been imposed by China, South Korea and Angola, whose markets were valued at nearly $700 million last year.  Double Ouch!

All it takes is one HPAI biohazardous-ignorant idiot to cause a total ban for the entire nation.  Triple Ouch!

Canada is part of that ban on US chicken.  Table 1 shows 2014 data for the US broiler industry, and the impact of the ongoing Canadian ban.

Table 1:  Broiler chicken production and processing by US States
under HPAI ban by CFIA.  Banned US States (red coloured)
represent 34.6% of US broiler production, 6.2% of US broiler chicken
processing, for a total impact of 9.1% of the US broiler industry.  The States
newly released from the CFIA ban (green coloured) had 23% of the US chicken
production and 4% of the US chicken processing, for a total of 27% of the
total US broiler chicken industry.  HPAI affected States (currently banned and
previously banned) had 57% of US broiler production, 10% of the broiler
processing, for a total of 36% of the total US broiler $ economic impact.  How
will the US broiler industry respond to this ongoing broiler ban by CFIA?

In Table 1, banned US States (red coloured) represent 34.6% of US broiler production, 6.2% of US broiler chicken processing, for a total impact of 9.1% of the US broiler industry total economic impact.  The States newly released from the CFIA ban (green coloured) had 23% of the US chicken production and 4% of the US chicken processing, for a total of 27% of the total US broiler chicken industry.  HPAI affected States (currently banned and previously banned) had 57% of US broiler production, 10% of the broiler processing, for a total of 36% of the total US broiler $ economic impact.

The CFIA ban includes eggs, live birds, meat, feathers, and all non-cooked or non-commercially sterilized chicken products that originate or are processed in the banned US States.  That's pretty comprehensive.  How will the US broiler industry respond to this ongoing US ban by CFIA?

Figure 1:   Map showing the CFIA ban on US chicken due to HPAI.  Green States have been removed
from ban as of 2015-09-01 as they are now HPAI-free.  The red States are still banned as of 2015-09-01.

 The infected States can't ship to non-infected States, and can't export out of the US, so they are left with the consumers and processors within their own State as their only available customers.  The non-banned States can export to Canada, but it's likely a longer way to the Canadian market (likely at a higher cost), but an opportunity to establish a relationship with Canadian customers who lost access to their normal chicken supplier due to the HPAI import ban.

NRDC reports that ten large companies, referred to as "Integrators" (eg. Tyson, Perdue, Pilgrim, etc.), produce more than 90 percent of the USA poultry.  The individual farmers enter into a contract with one Integrator to supply them full grown chickens ready for slaughter.  The Integrator supplies to each farmer the day old chicks, feed, medicine, and expertise; and audits the farmer's performance to ensure it meets the Integrator's contractual requirements.

This Blog previously reported that 85% of all HPAI infections in the USA occurred at CAFO chicken factories, in spite of the vast majority of chicken flocks being small non-CAFO producers (ie. Small Flockers).  I also previously reported that there are strong reasons to believe that CAFO chicken farmers are shooting themselves in the foot, causing or contributing to their HPAI infections due to poor biohazardous protocols by CAFO chicken factories.

Therefore I suggest the following lessons for Canada's Chicken Mafia:

1. Biohazardous risks have severe economic impacts that go way beyond just the few who become infected.  Everybody suffers, even the nation as a whole.
   
    
2. Canada's CAFO-based Chicken Mafia is its own worst enemy.  CAFO chicken factory technology is significantly flawed for biohazardous risks, and many other reasons.  CAFO needs to be abandoned, or dramatically improved.
   
    
3. Since Canada's Chicken Mafia is content to rape the Canadian public on an ongoing basis, and mostly ignores world export opportunities, the impact of HPAI infections today is mostly limited to the farms that become HPAI infected.  If Canada, through TPP or otherwise, starts to export considerable quantities of chicken, the risk exposure for Provinces (or all of Canada) dramatically increases due to the resulting export ban for an entire region, Province, or Canada-wide.
   
    
4. .Biohazard risks (ie. HPAI infections and all similar incidents) cause an entire industry to be no better than its weakest link.  That means Canadian governments (both Federal and Provincial) and the Chicken Mafia SM bureaucracy need to focus their efforts first and foremost on the weakest links, identifying them, helping them improve, or mitigating their threats to the entire industry by weeding them out of the industry.
5. Spent chicken importers who cheat on the SM system (ie. pretend it's spent fowl when they're really broilers, to save the 285% import duties) don't play by the rules, they are motivated by the almighty dollar.  If they are willing to mis-label chicken as spent fowl, they are likely willing to mis-label as to the State of origin or processing; thereby bypassing CFIA's HPAI ban. If a producer is in a banned area, they may be willing to take a significant price cut if someone is able to spirit away his banned chicken in the middle of the night; thereby adding additional economic incentive to the Chicken Cheater.  This cheating puts everybody at risk, but Canada's Chicken Mafia and their friends are not concerned about the risk, as the profits are too great, and their personal risk exposure is significantly compensated by the Federal Government, the Chicken Mafia, and/or others.  We can therefore expect to see some significant movements and possibly some significant "incidents" on spent fowl and IREP (Import for Re-Export) chicken while this CFIA ban is in place for US chicken from these 8 remaining States.

Please leave your comments on my five points of learning, and any additional learning points that you think are important.

Bird Flu Bailout

Bird Flu is expensive.  Who gets stuck with the bill for all of that biosecurity misfortune (or negligence)?

I previously outlined the significant questions that exist on Bird Flu and the Chicken Mafia's response.  Consumers eventually, and ultimately, get stuck with the bill for the negligence of chicken factory farmers.

How much will it cost consumers?

Nobody knows for sure.  Agri007 reported:

"United States Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said this week that the virus is going to cost the federal treasury $410 and said the costs  could mount to $500 million."

Half a Billion dollars isn't a bad start.  Of course, that's just the government's share for the condemned birds ordered to be destroyed.  The total cost is much larger.  There are costs to dispose of the dead carcasses, to clean the barns and sanitize them, the losses from business interruption.

There will also be raising of prices as a market shortage of chicken and eggs spreads, and much more.  For example Agri007 reports

"The U.S. price for eggs for processing has risen from 65 cents to $2.35 a dozen in the last five weeks."

That's a  361% price increase.  Ouch!

Let's assume that the total cost in the US will be $1 Billion.  Since they are 16 times bigger than the Canadian system, the cost for Canada is roughly $62.5 Million for 2015.

So how do Canadian consumers get stuck with the bill?

First of all, where does the government get their money to pay compensation for biosecurity negligence by SM farmers?  Of course, all of it comes from taxes paid by taxpayers.

Next, the Chicken Mafia has covered their bets by forming Poultry Insurance Exchange Reciprocal of Canada ("PIERC") in 2008 or there abouts.  This is a reciprocal insurance company that provides insurance benefits to the Chicken Mafia when they get hit with catastrophic losses from Salmonella and/or Bird Flu.  In Jan. 2010,  BF reported that PIERC planned to expand their coverage to Avian Influenza around Mar. 2010.

The current situation of this insurance and PIERC is hard to determine.  PIERC seems to have been registered as a corporation doing business in most or all provinces across Canada, but appears to have let lapse (ie. surrender) their business registration and/or licensing to offer insurance in Alberta in 2011, Nova Scotia in 2011, and has been refused a license to sell reciprocal insurance in Quebec as of July 2013, and become quite pissed off about that fact.

PIERC is off the books and running in stealth mode for the Chicken Mafia, where secrecy is king.

So we don't really know for sure, but here is some speculation sprinkled with some assumptions.

Each provincial Board has (or will) mandate each CAFO chicken factory farmer to comply with the Board's  biosecurity standards (as poor and superficial as those standards may be), and in return have mandatory coverage by the insurance policy issued by PIERC to that Board on behalf of each chicken farmer.

Why make it mandatory to have insurance?  The Chicken Mafia says it is made mandatory so as to ensure rapid recovery if disaster strikes.  In reality, insurers like this mandatory coverage, and insist upon it (just as they did for car insurance in Canada, and US Health insurance under Obamacare) so that profits are maximized, the insured pool is maximized, and risk is allegedly spread over a larger base so that the Law of Large Numbers applies (ie. fewer anomalies).  What really happens is that the negligent hide better in a larger forest, escaping easy detection, maximizing Moral Hazard.

Farmers pay a higher levy fee to their Board for every chicken or egg raised, to pay the insurance premium to PIERC.  That insurance premium becomes a cost of doing business for the farm, and is therefore used to calculate overhead costs that get added to the "reasonable" costs that get charged for farm gate commodity pricing.  That higher farm gate price gets marked up at each step along the way as the chicken flows through the Chicken Mafia system towards consumers.  In the end, everybody along the supply chain makes a little more profit due to the insurance premium paid on behalf of the farmers, so consumers end up paying many times the cost of the insurance policy cost.

When biosecurity disaster strikes, as it has in 2015, the negligent (or unlucky?) farmer submits a claim to CFIA and PIERC and gets fully compensated for their negligence (or very close to full compensation).

Insurance, especially insurance that has full compensation (or close thereto), has significant "Moral Hazard", where the guilty will reap the benefits of their negligent acts (ie. less work, saving a few pennies in labour and materials by skipping necessary repairs and improvements, etc.), and are shielded from the consequences of their negligent acts.

PIERC likely purchases re-insurance from other insurance companies.  That means when PIERC has a claim (as they do in 2015), other insurance companies have to pay for some of those losses.  Those other insurance companies see their expected profits disappear and their costs rise from Bird Flu claims, so they have to boost all of their premiums charged to consumers for car insurance, fire insurance, home insurance, E&O professional insurance, etc..  Again, consumers get dinged for Chicken Mafia negligence.

If Chicken Mafia's loses for 2015 are too big in BC and Ontario, PIERC will likely send a bigger premium bill for the following year to all Chicken Mafia Boards all across Canada who are a part of PIERC.  So even if one province has an excellent and competent Chicken Board and diligent farmers who have excellent biosecurity protocols, consumers in that province will be forced to pay their "fair share" of the negligent cost of doing business in the offending provinces.

If the Bird Flu losses are still not yet paid, the Subscription Agreement signed by each Provincial Board likely says that PIERC can make them to ante-up to cover all of the additional losses.  Again, those costs get sent to consumers.

There is no winning for consumers in this biohazardous deal.

What should happen to save the consumer from these Moral Hazards is:

1. Independent, third party risk management experts should regularly assess the biosecurity standards of each province based on accepted risk management techniques such as HACCP, FMEA, FTA, 8D, 5Y and similar techniques.
    
2. Independent, third party auditors should regularly assess each farm for compliance to their province's biohazard standard, and assign a RPN (Risk Priority Number) based on maximum probable loss, probability of an incident, severity of the incident, and prior detectability of the precursors of that incident.  The premium to be paid by each farmer will be based on a sliding scale for that RPN score, and the farm's actual loss record.
   
3. The amount of insurance is limited to 66% to 90% of the total cost, with the use of co-insurance, deductibles, and similar techniques so that the negligent farmers get a significant financial penalty for causing or contributing to an incident occurring.
   
4. The insurance premium is disallowed from consideration as an operating costs used to determine the farm gate price.  This ensures there is no indirect feed back mechanism to consumers.  If the farmer can lower his insurance premium by biosecurity improvements, he gets to keep all of the savings he deserves.  If not, the premium is money out of the farmer's pocket with no compensation from consumers.

Until this is done, Bird Flu and other biohazardous incidents will likely continue, and consumers will continue to be raped by any negligence and/or corruption caused by the Chicken Mafia inside Canada's dysfunctional Supply Management system.

Bird Flu Disaster

Can we learn something from the recent and on-going Bird Flu disaster?  I believe we can learn that CAFO commercial chicken factories are defective, corrupt, and biosecurity disasters.

Bird Flu Risk for CAFO factory farms is 77 times higher than for small flock farms
How do we explain this?

In Ontario, Chicken Farmers of Ontario ("CFO") reported in 2014 there is 1,138 commercial CAFO mega chicken factories, but 15,500 small flock chicken farmers.  In Canada, there is about 2,700 CAFO commercial chicken farmers, but we estimate there are far more than 60,000 small flock poultry farmers.


The largest Ontario flock in CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) factory barns is around 200,000 birds.  However, a small flock can be just 2 birds.  In Ontario, half of the small flocks have less than 57 birds according to CFO's data.


According to USDA data, 85% of the Bird Flu infections occur for CAFO factory farms.  It is suggested the same ratio holds for Ontario and Canada.

As of today, USDA estimates that roughly 10 percent of egg-laying hens and 6 percent of live turkeys in the U.S. have died because of the virus

We will assume the the number of flocks that could be infected, multiplied by the Probability of infection, gives us the number of infected farms.  This is in accordance with typical disease spread modeling.  We assumed that 1 Small Flock becomes infected.  This indicates that 5.7 CAFO flocks will become infected, producing an 85% infection ratio for CAFO.

In spite of these flock ratios of between 13 to 22 to 1 (ie. an average of 17.5 small flocks for every commercial chicken factory in Ontario), the CAFO mega chicken factories have 85% of the Bird Flu outbreaks, a 1:5 ratio.

With a 17:1 flock ratio but a 1:5 Bird Flu infection ratio, it appears that the commercial CAFO factory farms have an Bird Flu infection rate 77.18 times higher than what the small flocks have. 

How do we explain this 77 time higher probability that CAFO chicken factories become infected?

It may be easy to assume that God has smitten the CAFO chicken farmer and Chicken Supply Management with a plague as retribution for their past sins.

However, there is an easier, and less judgmental answer.  The easiest explanation it that the CAFO chicken factories are defective, corrupt, and biosecurity disasters.

Audit of Biosecurity Systems for Canada's Chicken Supply Management System

Small Flockers have completed an audit on the Biosecurity Systems (Regulations, Policy, Procedures, etc.) used by Canada's Chicken Supply Management System.  While much has been written, there are some important holes in the system, and it's disorganized.  Lack of details lead to misunderstandings and non-compliance to the intent.  Ongoing HPAI (Bird Flu) infections are the likely result.  The system needs a high priority overhaul NOW.

Bird Flu (scientifically known as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Type A, H5N1 and others) has been around since first identified in China in 1997, 18 years ago.  Perhaps we can forgive Canada's Poultry experts for assuming that it would stay in China.

However, in 2004 (just 7 years after the Chinese outbreak), BC's Fraser Valley was struck with a devastating Bird Flu outbreak.  So much for the "Only in China" theory about Bird Flu.

Some Bird Flu lessons were eventually learned.  For example, BC mandated some biosecurity requirements for all commercial poultry farms, including an Ante Room, where street clothes are removed and clean barn clothes are donned, further limiting the tracking in of infectious materials from outside.  Good idea!

There are some highly likely methods for infecting a commercial poultry farm, such as one or more of the following:

1. The farmer or staff steps in some wild bird poo just outside the poultry barn.  Wild birds (eg. ducks, geese, etc.) are known carriers of Bird Flu on a world-wide basis, so that wild bird poo should be assumed to be infectious.  The poo gets tracked inside the poultry barn, and eventually one or more poultry birds are infected.  That infected bird soon spreads the infection to all the other birds due to the congested living conditions inside the poultry barn.
    
2. A wetland or wild bird feeding area is nearby the poultry farm, and is often frequented by wild birds, some or most of whom are infected.  The wind can blow infectious dust towards the poultry farm.  The dust enters the barns through the large air intake vents that are not protected by MERV H14 HEPA filters (A-H5N1 and AH7N9 virus is 0.1 microns, with a 99.999% removal efficiency) and/or UV lights.  The infectious dust is breathed in by the poultry, infecting them.
3. Wild birds or other vermin are attracted by the readily available food for the chickens, and a nice place to live.  Without effective wire screens to exclude the vermin, they will find a way to enter the barns.  Once they enter, there droppings or bodily fluids will bring contamination inside the poultry barns.
4. Flies are known carriers of Bird Flu.  Flies has a maximum flight radius of 20 miles.  Any wild bird and/or the bird's droppings or bodily fluids are attractive for flies, leading to flies becoming carriers of Bird Flu.  Flies are also attracted to chicken farms due to the smells that indicate food and breeding opportunities.  CAFO chicken farms have up to 83 times the background concentration of flies.  Chickens will eat flies if they can.  If an infected fly is eaten, that chicken is likely to become infected.  Once one chicken is infected, most other chickens will soon be infected.  Wire screens, fly traps, and other fly management systems are needed to minimize this risk.  Fully sealing a large building like a CAFO poultry barn is difficult, and needs constant monitoring and upkeep.
5. Farm staff or service personnel had previously visited an infected farm, or personnel at an infected farm, then bring the infection home with them.  Lack of biosecurity protocols, or ineffective protocols, or non-compliance to protocols will soon allow that latent infectious materials to enter the poultry barn.

In my opinion, none of these risks are adequately assessed for risk, nor handled effectively in the resulting policies and procedures.  For more details, see Blog posting Chicken Factory Infections with Bird Flu

Figure 1 shows the 4 Risk Zones defined by CFIA.  The size of the infected zone is disease dependent. Based on the risk scenarios described above, the zone sizes are of questionable value, and may increase the risk of the infection spreading.

Figure 1:   Example of CFIA's Risk Zones
(Infected 3 km, Restricted 10 km, Security >10 km,
Control-Province).  What is the scientific basis
for these risk zone boundaries?

The World Health Organization, USDA, CFIA,  and many others have stated that a risk-based management approach should be applied to food production and distribution systems worldwide.

Has Canada's Chicken Supply Management followed these recommendations?  Did they correctly and comprehensively apply the recommended methods; or did they do an erroneous, slipshod, or superficial implementation?  Did they make a mistake, or invalid assumptions somewhere in their implementation?  Without the details shared with everybody, we'll never know the answers to these important questions.  If any of these errors exist, the results (ie. SOP's, policies, procedures, recommendations, etc.) when published and used can mislead everybody into consistently implementing risky behaviours; worse than no recommendations.

Here is the Excel Spreadsheet for USDA's Risk Assessment for CAFO Broiler Growing and the risk of transmitting Bird Flu to humans.  This risk assessment was Peer Reviewed, and was responded to by the USDA.  Public comments were also collected, and responded to by USDA.

There are many risk assessment models and other resources available from FoodRisk.org

Where are the details for Canada?  How does the risk assessments of USDA and Canada compare?  Unfortunately, we will never know under Canada's Chicken Mafia bureaucracy.

I had previously recommended to OMAFRA for the using of FMEA (Failure Mode Effect Analysis) and/or FTA (Fault Tree Analysis) to help determine the risks in their Meat Regulations (see the May 12, 2013 posting Meat Regulations Gone Wild) .  These techniques would also help focus the use of limited resources on the greatest risk, preventing a trial-and-error approach.  These powerful techniques could have been used here, guarding against Avian Flu, with the same benefits.

FMEA was invented by NASA in the 1960's to help achieve the Moon Shot.  It worked!  An FMEA was also done on the Space Shuttle that predicted catastrophic failure of the solid rocket booster every 25 missions, which was what Challenger was (Launch #25).  Unfortunately, that FMEA report was gathering dust on a shelf due to NASA bureaucracy, and wasn't acted upon until after the fact.

FMEA has been previously used in the food industry, with and without HACCP:

Ioannis S Arvanitoyannis, Theodoros H Varzakas (2008)  Application of ISO 22000 and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) for industrial processing of salmon: a case study.   Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 48: 5. 411-429 May 2008

and

Theodoros H Varzakas, Ioannis S Arvanitoyannis (2007)  Application of Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), cause and effect analysis, and Pareto diagram in conjunction with HACCP to a corn curl manufacturing plant.   Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 47: 4. 363-387 , 2008

and non-food, but also important:

FMEA Risk Analysis Lessons from New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina

In spite of this, OMAFRA ignored me then (Meat Regulations), and likely OMAFRA will ignore me again (for Bird Flu).

That will be very unfortunate for Canada.

Detailed Audit of HPAI Biosecurity for Chicken Supply Management

Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC") produced the On-Farm Food Safety Assurance Standard ("OFFSAS") for chickens, which includes Biosecurity systems.  The applicable parts for Bird Flu says:

2.3 Pest Control
…
As a minimum standard, you must follow these maintenance routines:
...
Air inlets for the barn and/or attic require a barrier such as screens to prevent wild birds from accessing the barn. Screens must deny access into the barn but still allow for normal function of the inlets in winter weather conditions (snow, ice, frost etc). All damaged barriers must be repaired immediately.

and

2.7   Air inlets are screened and damaged air inlet screens are repaired

and

8.1 Bird Supervision
   A) Dead Bird Removal and Disposal
      The following are guidelines for different types of mortality disposal:
         (4) Composting
            >Composters are to be maintained to minimize the attraction of flies, rodents and other animals.

Note that Section 2.3 calls for a "barrier such as screens".  Is that a screen that will stop a full flight suicidal goose, or a Chickadee, or a fly?  It doesn't say clearly what is expected.  I suggest that CFC personnel have likely been asked for clarification, and there are likely as many different answers as CFC employees.

In Section 2.7, is a man door an air inlet? What about a chicken door?  Again, are they screened to keep out racoons, or flies?  Lack of clarity.  I have had racoons easily push through standard chicken wire screens, and can do the same for fly screens.

In Section 8.1, dead stock composter must be "maintained".  Whether we have poor or excellent design of the composter, this does not seem to be an issue.  The gasses coming off from the compost attracts flies.  If some of those attracted flies were carrying bird flu, uninfected flies coming to the same smell may soon become carriers of Bird Flu too.  Next stop is the poultry barns, causing an outbreak.

Is this Section 8.1 compliant with all recommendations in the available research?

Exposure assessment of carcass disposal options in the event of a notifiable exotic animal disease: Application to avian influenza virus, Cranfield University, Centre for Resource Management & Efficiency, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield, Bedfordshire, UK MK43 0AL. Environmental Science and Technology (Impact Factor: 5.48). 05/2008; 42(9):3145-54. DOI: 10.1021/es702918d

Caged layers often have large quantities of chicken manure inside the barn.  Broilers live in their own filth for all their lives.  The anaerobic oxidation of those manures produce huge amounts of fragrant gasses that attract flies.  Flies come in the same holes from which those manure gasses leak out.  Eventually they will find a hole that isn't screened.  Again, no details on the risk, and no link to other detailed materials that describe the risks more fully.  Lack of understanding leads to no or incorrect actions.

There is also an Appendix with a fill-in-the-blank SOP's (Standard Operating Procedures).

OFFSAP STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES (Version 5.0)
CHAPTER 2: CONTROLLING ACCESS TO THE FARM
C) Pest Control
(1) Pest Situation Analysis:  Rate  your  farms’  pest  problems  in the  previous  year (none, some, lots):

Rodents, Wild Birds, Flies, Beetles, Other Pests: _______________________________

(4) Indicate the control measures used for flies: ________________________________

Relative fly counts means nothing.  For example, two years ago, it might have been so thick in flies you couldn't breath.  Last year, it was just a nuisance, so you score it "Some", because 2 years ago was "Lots". As an alternative, there are standard sentinel fly traps, where you can count the flies per hour of trap exposure.  Hard data can be compared, assessed for risk, and leads to action.

In CFC's OFFSAF, they mention referring to the National Farm Animal Care Council Code of Practice.  Unfortunately this Code is silent on flies, vermin, biosecurity, and poultry diseases.

Chicken Farmers of Ontario ("CFO") also offers CFC's OFFSAF

CFO has written up 1 (sometimes 2) page news releases on Bird Flu. I understand the advantage of short & sweet, and people with short attention spans.  It could be done as a quick, on-line quiz, they guess the right answer, and get trained if they guessed wrong, or entered for a prize draw for all who got the right answer.  Links for more in-depth training could have been offered on each key word.  Many things could have been done by CFO, but wasn't.

The same comments for CFO can be applied to the Feather Board Command Centre, Farmer Heightened Biosecurity Advisory, Suspect Avian Influenza in area southwest of Kitchener, April 18, 2015.  Short, sweet, and mis-leading.

FARMER DISEASE ADVISORY:   Suspect Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Heightened Biosecurity Notice, Thamesford/Woodstock area Oxford County   April 6, 2015

Here, we are encouraged to "Ensure adequate control of vermin and wild birds."  I'm not sure everybody knows the definition of "vermin", and are not inclined to look it up.  Fly maggots would likely be voted into the classification "vermin", but would a racoon?  Exactly what is meant by "adequate control?  I suspect that every farmer will have a different definition.  Will all of those definitions result in escaping a Bird Flu infection?

Biosecurity Cards contain high density information, and are likely skimmed over, limiting their impact, but at least they have more than superficial "Mom and Apple Pie" type of exhortations for Biosecurity.

Biosecurity Recommendations exists but has limited to no specific information.

Wild Bird connection to Bird Flu is published, but does not give all the necessary facts and mechanisms.  Without that basic understanding of how the mechanisms, people must be given an exhaustive check list, rather than apply some simple mnemonics or "Rules of Thumb".

Ante Room Construction is a font of good information on what and how to construct a biosecurity anteroom, and a little bit of "why".  With some hard data on the advantages of an Ante Room, I could see this type of paper actually motivating people to take action.  Well done!

Biosecurity Protocols for Poultry Service Sector Final with all SOPs has nothing for Broiler farmers.

CFIA’s Avian Biosecurity Technology Development Fund appears to have provided at least $3 Million for on-farm biosecurity system program development.  Did Canadian taxpayers get full vale for their money?


National Avian Biosecurity Advisory Council (NABAC)

CFIA's National Avian On-Farm Biosecurity Standard is one of the best biosecurity documents available.  I was pleasantly surprized to learn that it was based on objective measurement of risk based on David Halvorson's Risk Index Method.  At last, some scientific methodology, rather than educated guesses and subjectivity.  The AI horror in BC's Fraser Valley in 2004 was one of the motivations of Halvorson to develop this risk index, and write this peer reviewed paper.

Mandatory biosecurity requirements have been established for poultry farms in British Columbia. These requirements were developed from the lessons learned from the AI outbreak in 2004.

From this document, we also have the following:

Appendix 2
   4. Farm Management
      4.1 Pest Control
         Mandatory Standard # 12
            4.1.1 An effective pest control program must be in place. 
               Rationale: Pests are active and passive disease transmitting vectors. Minimizing pest populations will reduce the risk of disease transmission. 

Providing some rational is excellent.  Backing these statements with the quantitative data would be even better.

4.1.2 Interpretive Guideline:
a.  Premises should be maintained in a manner that minimizes pest infestations. 
b.  Rodent and insect control programs that are designed to reduce existing pest populations and prevent further establishment of new pests. 

Premises is "minimize", but vermin population is "reduce".  There is a difference between "reduce" and "minimize".

One person with a fly swatter applied for 5 minutes, will "reduce".  Is that what was intended?

 Conclusion

A few bright spots, but many holes, superficial, conflicting, ambiguity, subjective, misleading, non-actionable, puzzling, and non-informative.

Canada can do better.

Chicken Factory Infections with Bird Flu

Many people are scratching their heads, unable to understand how CAFO poultry farms are being infected, one after another.  Why are their biosecurity methods not protecting them?  Small Flockers, and this Blog may be able to shed some light onto this puzzling problem.

In a previous posting, we discussed Bad Bad Bird Flu and its primary linkage to CAFO chicken factory farms.  It appears we need to do some additional research on this biohazardous issue for the growing cohort of lost or doubting souls.

CAFO chicken factories pass on ~100% of the cost for Bird Flu
to the Canadian consumer.  This moral hazard ensures that the
Bird Flu epidemics will continue, due to the careless actions of
the CAFO factory farmers, and the bumbling bureaucracy of
Canada's Supply Management systems.

Chicken Factory Ventilation Factor

This Blog previously reported how poultry farms have been identified as increasing the odd 720 times higher for deadly E-coli contamination of spinach growing in fields up to 10 miles away (see Blog Posting "Biohazardous Ground Zero: Factory Chicken Farms").  This was the biggest risk factor of all during that research.

This contamination likely comes from the chicken factory exhaust air that is spewed into the atmosphere on a near-constant basis.

If a CAFO chicken factory spews infectious E.coli 10 miles downwind, can CAFO chicken factories spew infectious Bird Flu downwind too?

Can CAFO chicken factories ventilation systems suck in infectious materials from wild birds (or an infected CAFO) that is upwind of this yet uninfected CAFO?

Research has shown that avian flu can be carried downwind on dust

Fly Factor 

United Nations FAO reports:

"Research conducted by the Ohio Department of Health indicated that residences that were located in close proximity to poultry facilities (within half a mile) had 83 times the average number of flies. In addition to the nuisance they cause, flies and mosquitoes can transmit diseases, such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid, malaria, filaria and dengue fever."

 Ohio State University reports:

"...flies may spread diseases such as conjunctivitis, poliomyelitis, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, anthrax, leprosy, cholera, diarrhea and dysentery. They may serve as intermediate hosts for parasitic tapeworms on  poultry or parasitic roundworms on horses."

and

"The flight range [of flies] is from 2 to 20 miles."

The USDA's Agricultural Research Services ("ARS") reported that 45% to 50% of flies in poultry houses will become infected with Salmonella within 48 hours after their exposure to foods contaminated with Salmonella.  They also found that Salmonella-free chickens that ate flies infected with Salmonella, those chickens will become infected with Salmonella.

The American Association of Avian Pathologists reported that houseflies can become infected with H5N1 (ie. Avian Influenza) from infectious foods that they eat, and those infected flies can subsequently infect chickens with the flies' Bird Flu viral infection.

Iowa State University reports:

AIV is excreted primarily through the feces and to a lesser extent by secretions from the nose and mouth. This virus can survive in water for many days. In feces, it can survive for 30 to 35 days at 4 degrees C (39.2 F) and for seven days at 20  degrees C (68 F). Avian influenza viruses in liquid manure have been shown to remain viable for 105 days during the winter.  Avian influenza virus can be transmitted to a lesser degree by nasal and respiratory tract excretions. Low pathogenic AI replicates especially well in the upper respiratory tract.

and

"Humans are the primary spreaders of AIV between flocks.  Feces and respiratory secretions containing potentially millions of avian influenza virus particles are carried to different locations by contaminated people (clothing, footware and hands) and contaminated equipment. Flock owners should not share equipment, such as that used for manure handling, bird catching, vaccination, loading or transport.

Equipment contaminated by feces and respiratory secretions containing AI viruses can readily transmit the disease. Potential carriers include truck, pick-up and car tires on vehicles driven by feed delivery, live-haul to processing plants, flock owners, farm workers,  utility (electricity, water) workers, catching crews, vaccination crews, artificial insemination crews (turkeys), servicemen, manure applicators or veterinarians. Fecal dust containing virus particles and contaminated feathers may be disseminated by air currents. Careful disposal of manure and dead birds is critical."

 If 85% of the Bird Flu infections are in commercial CAFO chicken factories, it seems they are self-inflicting the damage unto themselves.  However, when they self-infect themselves, the also put us, the innocent public and neighbours at risk too, then send us the bill for their carelessness (see below).

Chicken Mafia Playing Russian Roulette with the lives of Canadians

World Health Organization reports:

"The overriding concern with respect to the HPAI H5N1 virus is that it may change into a form that is highly infectious for humans and that spreads easily from person to person. This could mark the start of a global outbreak or pandemic. No one will have immunity to the virus, as no one will have been exposed to it or developed antibodies. No vaccine with guaranteed efficacy can be prepared in advance of such an outbreak, because the causative virus does not yet exist. Potential vaccines are being prepared and stockpiled in advance, in the hopes that they may match a pandemic strain."

WHO also reports a total of 826 cases of confirmed Avian Flu in humans (from 2003 to Mar. 31, 2015), with 440 fatalities (53.3% fatality rate); about the same mortality rate as Ebola.

If you were concerned about Ebola outbreaks way over in remote Africa, perhaps you should be more concerned about Avian Flu outbreaks in a CAFO chicken factory near you.

 The Farlex Encyclopaedia states:

"In 2003, world-renowned virologist Robert G. Webster published an article titled "The world is teetering on the edge of a pandemic that could kill a large fraction of the human population" in American Scientist. He called for adequate resources to fight what he sees as a major world threat to possibly billions of lives. On September 29, 2005, David Nabarro, the newly appointed Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, warned the world that an outbreak of avian influenza could kill anywhere between 5 million and 150 million people.  Experts have identified key events (creating new clades, infecting new species, spreading to new areas) marking the progression of an avian flu virus towards becoming pandemic, and many of those key events have occurred more rapidly than expected.

Due to the high lethality and virulence of HPAI A(H5N1), its endemic presence, its increasingly large host reservoir, and its significant ongoing mutations, the H5N1 virus is the world's largest current pandemic threat, and billions of dollars are being spent researching H5N1 and preparing for a potential influenza pandemic."

Swayne & Suarez of the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens Georgia USA says the greatest risk from Bird Flu is from "the recombination of the AI virus with human-adapted influenza viruses that would lead to an antigenic shift and emergence of an influenza virus which could cause a pandemic in humans."

What that means is, the more times we test our fate, the closer we get to the pandemic human version of Bird Flu, which will kill millions of people.

Bird Flu strain H5N1 is similar to the influenza that infected 500 million people, and killed up to 100 million people in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.  That deadly outbreak in 1918 had a Basic Reproduction Rate estimated between 2 to 3 (ie. every primary infection subsequently causes 2 to 3 additional infections in secondary victims).

In a 2006 outbreak in Romania of HPAI (Type H5N1), scientists estimated the Basic Reproduction Rate ("BPR") for this virus to be between 1.95 to 2.68 (a geometric average value of 2.23).  Note the similarity between the BPR for Bird Flu, and the killer 1918 Spanish Flu.

Since its hard to hide a >95% death rate in your chicken factory farm, it is likely that CFIA will soon find out about every HPAI event, and order a 100% cull and sanitizing of the entire farm.  This will minimize the risk of an antigenic shift (ie. two or more different viruses inside a host that share & swap their genetic material to create a deadly hybrid).

The MPAI (Mild Pathogenic Avian Influenza) version, however, will make the birds feel sick, but most will survive.  The MPAI type of Bird Flu could be hidden, due to fear or convenience.  That means that the infection can become endemic, traveling around and around among the CAFO staff and back to a new barn, then to a new flock, and so on.  If there is mixed farming (ie. beef, pork, sheep, goat, etc.) on the same farm or nearby, the genetic material resources and the available combinations becomes almost unlimited.  With greater residence time for the MPAI infection, the risk climbs exponentially for an antigenic event to occur.

Whether HPAI or MPAI, either way, if this scenario is repeated enough times, in enough chicken factories (likely occurs with layers, or possibly broilers), it will eventually create the killer strain.

Once the killer strain is created, a CAFO employee will get infected with that killer hybrid, or the virus will be blown downwind to a neighbour via the CAFO ventilation system.  Those sick people then spread it around during the 3 to 14 days when they are infectious but not yet bedridden.  Most influenza have 2 to 3 secondary victims for every primary victim.  That exponential growth rate causes the influenza to spread like wildfire. Soon after that, it's pandemic time!

Supply Management Bureaucracy Factor

The regulatory bodies in Canada are supposed to set adequate biosecurity standards.

These same regulatory bodies are supposed to audit each and every CAFO chicken factory to ensure they are compliant to those biosecurity standards.

Those regulatory bodies could force CAFO chicken factories to have sentinel systems inside of the chicken factory barns to detect breaches in their biosecurity systems (eg. fly traps, and the reporting of the number of flies found inside the barn on a daily or weekly basis).

Have these regulatory bodies done all or any of this on a competent and effective basis?  If yes, where is the objective proof of this?

Unfortunately, we get nothing but secrecy, rather than disclosure.

The prima facie evidence from the spread of the Bird Flu from one chicken factory to the next seems like proof positive that these regulatory agencies have failed miserably.

Hand wringing and pleading to be aware and fully compliant to ineffective, half baked standards won't help.

Not only are CAFO chicken factories a failure, the Supply Management bureaucracy is a failure.

We have simple technology called screened windows and screened doors.  Are they mandated, and audited to ensure they are used successfully?

Of course, this is just one simple example of how the system has failed all of us.  There are numerous other holes in CAFO's biosecurity systems.

Who Pays for All This?

Killing millions of infected birds has a huge cost.  Losing millions of dollars worth of chickens that die the day before you would have sold them is tragic.  However, the millionaire CAFO factory farmers are protected from most of these costs by insurance and/or government reimbursements for the incurred costs and lost profits.

In the 2015 Bird Flu outbreak in the US, the US government has paid $191 million in direct compensation to farmers for Bird Flu losses.  However, the total bill to the US government is estimated to be $700 million as of June 2015, and still climbing.

When Bird Flu strikes, consumers throughout Canada have the pleasure of receiving higher government taxes, and higher chicken prices.  Indirectly, some or all chicken farmers will have to pay higher insurance premiums, which get added to the factory farmers' COP (Cost of Production) that consumers are eventually forced to pay.

In other words, the consumers are the ultimate victims of Bird Flu; forced to pay for the CAFO factory farmer's recklessness & incompetency.

The consumers are forced to pay for the fossilized Supply Management bureaucracy that blunders on, allowing all of this to continue, decade after decade.

Conclusion

Based on this research, it seems safe to assume that CAFO chicken factories and the Supply Management bureaucracy in Canada are designed on the same principles as a screen door on a submarine; highly questionable technology.

Bad, Bad Bird Flu

Avian influenza ("AI") has been striking flocks across North America.  Why is this happening?  Where is the source of risks that cause these outbreaks?

On Better Farming website, some anonymous postings have accused small flock and backyard chickens for spreading the avian influenza infection, pointing to "many" small flocks with  AI.

The USDA has a web page listing the site of the recent AI outbreaks.   Downloading the listing and doing some statistical analysis of the data, we get the following information.

Table 1:   Bird Flu statistics for USA

There are two major categories for bird flu infections; commercial and backyard. For some, the data on the extent of the infections has not yet been received.  These data are for the ones for which the impact is already known as of 2015/04/23.

A total of 71 flocks have been infected; 60 commercial flocks, and 11 backyard flocks.  That means that 84.5% of all the US infections are at commercial establishments.

Of course, the commercial flocks are huge CAFO's (Concentrated Animal Feed Operations), with many thousands of birds.  Of all the birds infected, 99.9% of them are commercial chicken factory birds.

Bird Flu Risk:  CAFO of Small Flockers?

In the 2012 US agricultural census, there were 198,272 commercial egg laying poultry farms, and 32,935 commercial  broiler farms, for a total of 231,207 commercial poultry farms in USA.  While that is a huge number of commercial farms, the number of flocks at small flock farms and backyard chickens is orders of magnitude larger.  Why then, are 85% of the disease outbreaks coming from commercial operations that are less than 10% of the total number of US flocks?

I suggest it's because the CAFO chicken factories are a hotbed of disease and unhealthy birds; a powder keg waiting for a wayward & negligent bird flu match to be tossed in.  CAFO's are a Bird Flu powder keg because CAFO's are based on biologically improper techniques and processes.  When you have chicken factory coop congestion, and a large number of birds than mill around amongst all others, any infection will quickly spread to most other birds.  The more birds infected, the greater the risk of infecting the remaining birds.  The infection spreads like wildfire in a CAFO chicken factory.

It has been shown that Bird Flu can be transmitted by air through aerosols and dust.  That fact applies to all the birds inside the CAFO factory barn, as well as the farm's other CAFO factory barns that are right beside the infected barn.  It also means other CAFO factory farms that are downwind of the infected farm.

Once infected, a CAFO often spreads the infection to neighbouring CAFO's, in spite of all their pontification, boasting, and false bravado about their super duper biohazard isolation procedures and quarantines.  Their questionable quarantines are like a leaky sieve; the infection easily passes through to the next CAFO victim, time & again.

Small Flockers are generally based on better methods, so the get infected at a significantly lower incidence rate.  If a small flock farm happens to get infected in spite of protection from better techniques, the infection tends to stay isolated, rather than becoming the well or vector from which the disease is spread to other flocks.

WorldWatch Institute reports

Sustainable farming advocates insist that backyard chickens are less of a concern than factory-farmed poultry, which the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production has said poses serious risks of transmitting animal-borne diseases to human populations, especially due to the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance.

"When it comes to bird flu, diverse small-scale poultry farming is the solution, not the problem," the international sustainable agriculture organization GRAIN concluded in a 2006 report.

Chicken Farmers of Ontario ("CFO") also reported that Ontario's small flock poultry farmers generally respected bio-security precautions and protocols.  See Blog posting "Are Small Flockers competent to care for live birds?" and CFO's poster which absolves Small Flockers from being the scapegoat for biosecurity risks.  It is interesting that CFO has subsequently removed that poster from their website.  I wonder why?

Alerting Small Flockers to Bird Flu Risks

As of Feb. 23, 2015 CFO declares it will communicate biosecurity risks & events to Small Flockers when there is a biosecurity alert or disease outbreak.  This is a major sea change for CFO, from their previous policy of dichotomy (or schizophrenic) polarization of ignoring Small Flockers, or harassing them.  However, here we are in an outbreak, and we have a communication blackout from CFO to Small Flockers.

It is misguided for me to judge others by my personal beliefs and standards.  However, I suggest it is reasonable to judge CFO by CFO's own standards and principles.

The only thing that CFO, Hatcheries, and the Egg Board has done is a simple, token effort of posting alerts on their Small Flock website, leaving it to Small Flockers to check back there on a daily basis to discover if there are any alerts.

Is it reasonable to expect 15,000 small flock farmers in Ontario to check that website on a daily basis?

CFO has the contact info for all Small Flockers in their CFO database.  CFO sends email alerts to their 1,400 millionaire members on a regular basis.  Is it reasonable for CFO to push a button to send an email alert to each & every Small Flocker, alerting them of incidents, recommendations, and changing risks?

On that basis, CFO gets an F- grade.

However, Ecological Farmers of Ontario ("EFAO") sent a Bird Flu alert email out to all Small Flockers listed on their database.

Active alert communications by EFAO are far superior than the passive, limp communication efforts by CFO.

Therefore, SFPFC sends out two communiques:

• A big Thank-you ! for the enlightened concern and voluntary, helpful effort of EFAO.

• An insulting raspberry to the semi-silence of CFO, when they should be communicating and alerting Small Flockers on an active basis.

Danger! Bird Flu H5N8 at Dutch Chicken Egg Factory Farm

The highly contagious H5N8 Bird Influenza has been found at a chicken egg factory farm near Henkendorp, Holland.

Dutch authorities have quarantined a 10 km radius; nothing chicken related allowed to come in, or go out.  They know this could be serious.

How do we know it's a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation)?  Dutch authorities will soon be slaughtering 150,000 chickens who reside at that farm for egg production.

Realize that these 150,000 bird likely have all the same genetics, so they are similar to being genetic clones of each other.  Usually, factory chicken have the same parents, same grandparents, and same great grandparents.  They are all hatched the same, fed the same, and treated the same.  In other words, there is no difference between any of these birds.  That's how CAFO operations work.  The birds all grow at the same rate, and produce the same size eggs, at the same rate, with no variability.

As long as everything goes perfectly, you maximize profits.

If something goes wrong, it quickly becomes a total disaster.

DW reports:

"The various strains of bird flu regularly cause panic - which is perhaps justified because the [human] mortality rate is 70 percent."

These viruses are constantly mutating.  Some, like H5N1 and H5N8 are not easily spread to humans.  Other H5 virus strains, including all future strains, have the potential to be transmitted much more easily to humans.  When that happens, avian flu will quickly become far worse than Ebola.

The longer we delay solving the CAFO issues, the more virus mutations that occur, and the higher the risk that the transmission to humans goes exponential.  Sooner or later, we will wish we had reacted sooner.

Likely, the CAFO factory farmer will be financially compensated by the Dutch government.  In that way, that CAFO farmer (and all other factory farmers just like him)  is encouraged to do the same risky behaviour all over again.

The factory farmer gets the huge profits when everything goes right.  The public picks up the tab when things go bad.  The public is exposed to the significant risk of disease outbreak or financial insurance and moral hazard that supports and encourages this risky behaviour.

Canada's chicken factory farms are up to the same tricks too.  It is only a matter of time before this same or similar risk hits Canada once again. In 2004, avian flu resulted in the destruction of 17 million chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese in Canada.  The House of Commons  Agriculture Committee eventually got involved with the botched handling of that outbreak by the powerful Supply Management lobby and their friends at CFIA.

Again in 2009, H5 strain of bird flu struck at Abbotsford BC at a chicken CAFO with 50,000 birds initially.  The cull eventually spread like wildfire as CFIA tried to contain the outbreak.

The CAFO system is flawed.  The sooner Supply Management admits it, the sooner we can move forward to something that is safer and better for all. 

There 'aughta be a law.