There are now 37 proven outbreaks in the Dordogne according to Yannick Frances, vice president of the Dordogne Chamber of Agriculture. He comes out this Tuesday evening of a new meeting at the prefecture of the Dordogne with the veterinary services and the professionals of the sector affected since April 4 by a serious crisis of avian flu.
7 more proven outbreaks and 4 suspicions
Since Saturday, April 16, there is at this time “seven additional proven outbreaks and four suspected […] i.e. two outbreaks discovered every day, always in the same areas” says Yannick Frances. Among these new proven outbreaks, the experimental goose farm in Coulaures, in Périgord Vert. The outbreak was spotted over the weekend and the 700 geese slaughtered this Tuesday including a herd of breeders which supplies eggs and goslings to the goose sector in the Dordogne but also at the national level.
According to the two representatives of the Chamber of Agriculture in charge of the avian flu file, the situation is worrying and we must now contain the epizootic with “a new zoning“. According to Pierre-Henri Chanquoi, the secretary general of the Chamber, producers located within a radius of 20 kilometers around an outbreak should be able to transport their healthy animals to force-feed them and to slaughter them in order to create stocks for the winter and the summer period. It is then a question of setting up very localized “sanitary spaces” around the hearths to allow production to resume quickly. “depopulation” assures Yannick Frances, “we want to avoid the trauma of 2015”.
A new prefectural decree expected this Wednesday
The prefecture of the Dordogne must publish this Wednesday a new decree after validation of the protocol by the Ministry of Agriculture. This Tuesday, the vice-president and the secretary general declare that they have questioned the State on the compensation expected by the breeders who have lost their livestock and their animals. “There are big cash flow problems on the farms” recalls Yannick Frances. “we want to highlight the specificities of the Dordogne, here we have farms on a human scale and they are very diffuse […] we were the good students until now, we want to promote it”.