Ontario turkey egg producer experiences impact of B.C. avian flu outbreak

Friday, December 19, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

The British Columbian avian influenza outbreak caused a one-and-a-half week stoppage of Kitchener-based Hybrid Turkey’s exports of turkey eggs and day-old poults to the European Union.

That’s because at first the European Union placed its temporary import restriction on all poultry and poultry products from all of Canada. But it has since changed the restriction to imports just from the primary control zone in B.C. established by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) where the disease has been identified.

“It is a serious issue for us to be able to export,” says Scott Rowland, Hybrid Turkeys director of operations for the Americas. “It’s a perishable product and we’ve got to move the birds and the eggs out the door.”

Since Dec. 1, 11 farms in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley have been hit with the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza strain, including chicken broiler breeders, turkey farms and an egg laying operation. The CFIA has established a primary control zone with movement controls for all birds and related products in the area of B.C. where the disease has been identified. The zone covers all of the southern half of the province. The zone’s northern boundary is Highway 16.

Meanwhile, CFIA has not determined the cause of the outbreak. “The agency’s investigation into this issue is still ongoing,” spokesman Rod Lister says by email.

There are many ways a virus could be introduced into an environment, including migratory birds, he says. But to date Canada’s 2014 wild bird surveillance testing has not detected the H5N2 strain in wild birds. “However, wild birds are known natural reservoirs of influenza viruses,” he says.

Rowland says Europe is Hybrid Turkeys’ second biggest market for turkey eggs. Their biggest market for eggs and day-old poults is the United States, which installed a temporary import restriction on poultry and poultry products from just the primary control zone CFIA established in B.C.

About 85 per cent of Hybrid’s business is export oriented, Rowland notes. Hybrid is owned by Hendrix Genetics, which also owns ISA, the table egg laying breeding operation based in Cambridge, Ontario. The biggest markets for the egg laying operation are the United States and South America.

Even though the EU agreed to recognize Canada’s primary control zone and limit its import restriction to just that area, Canada still has to negotiate with each EU country to determine if they will decline or take Canada’s poultry products, Rowland says. Germany, France, The Netherlands and Croatia have, so far, agreed to accept Canada’s products.

“For Hybrid and ISA those are the countries we need to get into,” he says.

Hybrid still has to hold back shipments of products in the layer division because some countries, such as Guatemala, have placed temporary import restrictions on products from all of Canada.

“We would like countries to recognize the (B.C. control) zone” so products outside the zone can continue to be shipped, Rowland says.

He says Canada and the EU recognized each other’s zones pretty quickly “because there’s avian influenza in Europe right now so they also want reciprocation that outside the zone they can continue to move product.”

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada spokesperson James Watson says by email the entire poultry export market from Canada to the United States was worth $11.27 million from January to October 2014.
 
Phil Boyd, executive director of Turkey Farmers of Canada, says Canada exports about 26 million hatching eggs and poults each year to many countries. The majority of the exports come from Ontario.

For turkey meat, about 12 million kilograms has been exported so far this year. The largest markets for those exports are the United States, South Africa, Cuba, West Africa and Jamaica. The meat that’s exported is off cuts, such as necks and backs, from the deboning of turkeys for further processing, which is largely a white meat market in Canada.

Mike Terpstra, executive director of the Association of Ontario Chicken Processors, says by email the temporary import restrictions are having some impact on chicken processors outside of B.C. but “it’s likely not significant.”

The three largest markets for Canadian chicken exports are the U.S., Taiwan and the Philippines. These countries have not put in place any restrictions on Canadian exports outside of B.C., he notes.  

For farmers, this is a critical time of year for the increased threat of avian influenza to commercial poultry flocks because wild birds on their fall migration are coming into closer contact with poultry barns.

And even though there is a low risk of the the outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza virus in B.C. spreading to Ontario, it’s still a good time for Ontario farmers to review their biosecurity measures.

Greg Douglas, Ontario chief veterinarian, says the review should include access, mortality and manure management, along with an evaluation of sanitation, feed and water control “so it’s not being contaminated by wild birds or anything from the outside.”

Mike Petrik, an Ontario poultry veterinarian with McKinley Hatchery Ltd. in St. Marys, says “the outbreak in B.C. is of pretty low risk to us. There’s very little east-west travel of poultry.”

There’s always a risk in Ontario of avian influenza being spread by wild birds because there are a lot of waterfowl that travel along the Great Lakes and that are in the area. “They’re always a risk; they always have been and always will be a risk,” he says. “It’s just something that we have to try to live with and mitigate and just do our best to keep it out.”

The B.C. outbreak will have no impact on the risk in Ontario because ducks and geese travel north-south so “there are no ducks and geese that are going to fly from B.C. to here,” he says.

Petrik says the virus can also be found in other birds, besides waterfowl and commercial poultry. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials have confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza virus in falcons used to control birds in orchards in northern Washington State.

The USDA also reported in a Dec. 17 news release it identified the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza in northern pintail ducks also in northern Washington State. Some news articles from B.C. are reporting that shows the B.C. virus has spread to northern Washington State.

Petrik says that’s possible “but nobody knows. Wherever the B.C. flock got it from could have been the source for” the U.S. birds too.

As for Ontario poultry farmers, Petrik says they should continue to maintain their good biosecurity and “not have visitors in their barns without good reason. The biosecurity programs that we have right now are good” and people must continue to keep their programs running well. BF