Home
News
Dutch poultry off the menu in five countries
Five countries have imposed blanket or partial bans on imports of
Dutch poultry and poultry products after the Netherlands found evidence of a
low-pathogenic H7 bird flu strain at a farm last
week.
Diplomats at the Dutch embassies in Russia, the Philippines, Singapore,
Taiwan and Hong Kong are trying to make it clear to local authorities that there
is nothing wrong with poultry meat and eggs from the Netherlands.
The Dutch agriculture ministry announced that an investigation had discovered
no new cases of avian
influenza after the infection in the village of Voorthuizen. Within the EU,
there are no export problems, as member states are not allowed to impose trade
restrictions on one another.
The ministry said in a statement that transport was allowed again of birds
for slaughter, newly-hatched chicks, eggs and other livestock out of a safety
zone set up around the infected farm.
But it said other live poultry and their manure could still not be
transported out of the zone. The authorities will review these measures again in
a week.
Last week, Dutch authorities culled all 25,000 chickens at the infected farm
and sealed off another 130 farms for testing to prevent a major outbreak.
The import bans are a blow to the Dutch poultry industry, Europe's second
biggest after France.
The Netherlands exports live birds, meat and eggs worth about 1.5 billion
euros a year mainly to Germany, Britain, Belgium, France, Ukraine, Japan, Poland
and Russia.
Editor WorldPoultry
To comment, login here
Or register to be able to comment.