Support Fraser Valley poultry farms during avian flu outbreak: BC minister

It’s reminiscent of efforts by Alberta’s government after the 2012 beef recall for possible E. coli contamination; BC’s agriculture minister is encouraging people to support Fraser Valley poultry farmers.

Norm Letnick is making the plea as a ninth farm has tested positive for avian flu.

“I just want to encourage everyone out there to continue to buy their turkeys and chickens for Christmas as they normally would but, of course, make sure they handle the meat as appropriate and cook it to the right temperature.”

As far as the outbreak is concerned, he says it’s all about perspective.

“The best news, I would say, compared to 2004 we’re dealing with approximately 200,000 birds compared to approximately 17-million birds in 2004. While it will have a very severe impact on an individual farmer, on the grand scale from a provincial perspective it really is small compared to where were were in 2004.”

He says he’s been receiving daily briefings since the first two farms were identified on December 1st. “As soon as the outbreak came up, I had a good discussion with leaders in the industry. We agreed the best thing to do would be to set up a file immediately on the Agri-Recovery Plan so we can get that moving as fast as we can with our federal partners.”

Eight countries have placed restrictions on BC poultry products.

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