Cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza were first detected in Quebec in 2022. Since then, more than a million birds have been infected, leaving affected producers traumatized and keeping those spared on alert.
Since the beginning of the year, three farms have reported the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza type H5N1; the most recent case dates back to April 10, the Ministry of Health indicated. This bodes well for the moment, compared to the 28 sites affected in 2023 and the 23 sites in 2022.
According to the most recent data from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), 1.4 million birds have been infected in Quebec, making it the third most affected province behind Alberta (1.8 million) and British Columbia (6 million).
However, the summer season is only just beginning and producers are more concerned about the fall when migratory birds – which spread the disease – are flying over the fields in large numbers.
“We cannot help but think about it, especially during periods of migration. […] When we walk on the farm and we hear a flock of geese flying over the farm, we can no longer say that we find it pretty, it worries us more because we hear the noise and lots of images come to mind and the dangers of contamination,” declared Benoît Fontaine, president of the Éleveurs de volailles du Québec.
Services to keep away birds that land on an agricultural site are also offered by the UPA.
Pierre-Luc Leblanc, a turkey and poultry farmer from Montérégie, experienced an ordeal in December 2023 when the virus entered one of his buildings, despite all the biosecurity standards in place.
Mr. Leblanc is pleased with the caseload for 2024, but he is not letting his guard down. “For the fall, we are not out of the woods, it will come. In my case, there were a lot of migratory birds the week before I was infected,” he says.
In Quebec, when a case is detected, all birds on the farm must be euthanized and the buildings must be disinfected from top to bottom.
“The fear is not to experience the financial loss, it is to relive all the steps to restart the site. The financial loss is boring, we do not want to lose money in life, but to think again about euthanizing the birds and composting especially. Washing is not so bad, […] but euthanasia and compost, I’m scared to death, I don’t want to go through that again,” testified Mr. Leblanc.
Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt, a full professor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Université de Montréal, points out that breeders have an emotional attachment to their animals on several levels. “These are people who are proud of what they do, they provide a quality source of protein that doesn’t cost too much,” he explains.
Mr. Fontaine confirms that it is “a very serious trauma” for some breeders. “We are there at the heart of farming families and psychological support at the Union des producteurs du Québec to support people who are going through this ordeal,” he says.
Food waste is also a consequence. “We raise these animals to ultimately consume them, but not to destroy them along the way while they are still adolescents. It is food waste, it is a financial loss and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency – which does an excellent job – still takes control of your farm, no less. So you are at home without being there. It is traumatic,” adds Mr. Fontaine.
Compost from carcasses
In 2023, Mr. Leblanc owned three buildings totaling 32,000 turkeys and four buildings of 90,000 chickens. They all had to be slaughtered.
He would remember the call from the vet with the bad news for the rest of his life. “Your legs just fell off when you left,” he recalls.
From that moment on, he felt an enormous pressure. “Life stops turning. Everything you have around this site no longer matters, family, there is nothing that matters anymore. You react to protect. And at the same time, you are not without thinking about the financial risk. You think about your birds that you will not sell,” he admits.
Mr. Leblanc immediately wanted to ensure that his staff was safe because of the risk of contamination in humans, although it was minimal.
For Mr. Leblanc’s farm, the euthanasia procedure was completed in five days. The carcasses cannot be moved elsewhere to avoid spreading the disease. Dead birds must be composted on site, a particularly difficult step for the producer and his employees.
“It’s work that is inhumane, what we are asked to do, in terms of mental health. You have to coordinate the euthanasia with the team that comes to do it. Post-euthanasia, you and your staff have to compost your birds on your own site,” describes Mr. Leblanc.
“You load up dead birds, you have a white carpet of dead birds on the site. Just to see the image… it’s unbelievable what the producer has to go through, but my colleagues have gone through it too,” he continues.
Mr. Leblanc’s only wish was to “return to normal life.”
Five weeks later, after the decontamination stage of the buildings, new birds were able to settle in. During the first months, Mr. Leblanc was afraid to enter his buildings for fear of recontaminating his birds. “We know that the big risk is we who do it. […] This really needs to be a sterile area. I was so scared. You know you had a nightmare yesterday, but you know you’re going to have more.”
Financial losses
Avian flu also has a financial impact on the community. “It can have quite significant impacts on ordinary people. Financially, just looking at the Americans, the price of eggs has increased enormously recently,” says Mr. Vaillancourt.
In Canada, the government compensates the producer for the market value of the birds that are destroyed and the entire process of depopulation and disposal of infected carcasses, but not disinfection.
The CFIA supervises the cleaning work, but it is the producer’s responsibility to sanitize the premises.
Mr. Leblanc had a value of one million dollars for his poultry and despite financial compensation of this value, he estimates having lost $350,000.
Martin Pelletier, agronomist and coordinator of the Quebec Poultry Disease Control Team (EQCMA), said that there is an insurance program developed in partnership with the industry that covers a large portion of the cleaning and disinfection costs.
“There are always losses that the producer will assume because if his herd is depopulated, and sometimes that cuts his production cycle, he cannot necessarily resume his production in time,” explains Mr. Pelletier.
According to him, if we take into account personnel costs, the Government of Canada would have spent nearly $300 million in costs related to avian flu since the end of 2021.
Mr. Leblanc hopes that if a cure or vaccine is found, export rules would be relaxed, because currently several countries do not accept meat from vaccinated animals. “But we have to solve the problem, we cannot live year after year with this pressure as breeders and as a society,” he argues.