One epidemic can hide another.
2022 promises to be just as difficult as last year for French poultry farmers.
Indeed, France now has 151 farms infected with avian flu, two-thirds of them in the Landes department, we learned Thursday from the Ministry of Agriculture.
In just 24 hours, 21 new herds were affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza, known as avian flu.
The epidemic seems to be spreading at high speed. Eight days ago, there were 41 farms already infected.
“The virus is active and circulating.
The Landes are particularly affected because of the concentration of breeding in this department, ”one explained to the ministry.
In detail, of the 151 infected farms, 94 are in the Landes, 28 in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, 16 in the Gers, eight in the North, two in Vendée and Hautes-Pyrénées and one in Lot-et-Garonne .
In addition to contamination of farms, 21 cases were detected in wildlife and five backyards were affected.
Already more than 650 poultry slaughtered in December
France has around 20,000 poultry farms bred for meat, eggs or foie gras.
The virus was identified for the first time in breeding on November 26 on a farm in the town of Warhem (Nord) where 160,000 laying hens were raised all year round in buildings.
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However, the confinement of outdoor poultry had been imposed in November by the Ministry of Agriculture to avoid contact with migratory birds carrying the virus.
The measure, often experienced as heartbreaking by breeders and denounced by part of the profession, had been decreed even earlier, in September, in the areas most at risk.
Despite this, at the end of December, the bird flu had already led to the slaughter of around 650,000 poultry in one month.
The results as of January 13 for the slaughter of ducks, geese and other poultry were not yet known.
Like last year, the Southwest concentrates most of the cases.
In 2021, the crisis - the third since 2015 - had ended up being stemmed at the cost of the slaughter, often preventive, of more than 3.5 million poultry, mainly waterfowl.