WESTON A. PRICE FOUNDATION
INFORMATION ALERT
May 18, 2006
Avian flu’s rapid spread across Asia and Europe has heightened concerns that the disease will arrive in North America soon. By acting now, small-scale poultry farmers in the U.S. can reduce the risk to their operation of contracting the disease, according to a primer by Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).
Dead Birds Don’t Fly: An Avian Flu Primer for Small-Scale Farmers, by Lindsey Hillesheim, Ph.D., educates farmers with free-range or pastured poultry operations about the basic biology of avian influenza in birds and humans to help evaluate the risk of an avian flu infection in their flock. Although every farm is unique and its response will be different, the primer offers a basic description of H5N1 avian flu, how it can spread, how to reduce infection risks in poultry and workers, and appropriate responses during an outbreak.
“Free-range and organic poultry have an advantage over their caged-raised counterparts in regards to the resilience of their immune systems,” said Steve Suppan, Ph.D., IATP’s Director of Research. “Free-range birds are constantly exposed to low levels of pathogens that naturally reside in the environment and this exposure further strengthens their immune system. Many of the poultry lines employed by free-range farmers have been bred to live outdoors and resist infection.”
To download the Primer, please link to
http://www.agobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid=80410
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