Two months before the year-end celebrations, bird flu and the energy crisis will push foie gras prices up. Breeders speak of a “catastrophic year“. With a bird flu epidemic.”that has never stopped“, Sylvie Colas, poultry farmer from Gers, tells franceinfo on Saturday 22 October.
>> Bird flu: falling production and rising prices, foie gras producers are worried about the approach of the holidays
“The wave never stopped, probably due to a certain endemization of the virus“, notes the farmer responsible for the” avian flu “file at the Confédération paysanne.”Yes, because last year, especially in the Great West, in May, there were many outbreaks, many massacres“, He specifies.
The huge concentration of animals has complicated the task of health authorities and farmers, according to Sylvie Colas: “Since there are a lot of animals, a lot of traffic, equipment, personnel, very large slaughterhouses, but also a lot of manure and sewage around these farms … All this probably caused a great viral load that also affected the local fauna.“
For the farmer, the virus has never been eradicated, as it has “always found something to eat.“Sylvie Colas is of the same opinion as some agricultural specialists who consider this avian flu crisis the worst that France has ever known.
“It is one crisis too many. We think that between 20% and 30% of our producers, whether small, medium or large, will leave the profession”.
Sylvie Colas, poultry farmeron franceinfo
“We believe there is little hope in this poultry sector“, he also adds. The spokesman for the Confédération paysanne trade union presents a bitter observation since”even with all the measures that were taken, and particularly the confinement we were told was the solution, it didn’t work“The Hungarian and Bulgarian competitors are also affected by the epizootic.
