A deadly strain of bird flu continues to spread around the nation, with 69 human cases to date and more states reporting the first human cases this month.
But it’s also spread from wild birds into chicken houses on the Delmarva peninsula, causing concern for farmers who rely on turning out healthy flocks to make a living.
More than 7,300 jobs are tied to chicken farming on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Many of those are in two processing plants owned by Tyson and Perdue.
Robert Crockett, a lifelong Accomack resident and the county’s former sheriff, has served on the county’s board of supervisors since 2012.
He estimates those two processing plants account for around 15% of Accomack’s workforce. That figure doesn’t include dozens of chicken farms.
“The poultry industry is the anchor of our economy,” Crockett said.
The new bird flu strain was flagged in nine poultry farms on the Delmarva Peninsula so far this year.
Only one case was tied to a farm in Accomack. At this point, there’s been no evidence of farm-to-farm spread and eight of the nine cases have been cleared, including the one in Accomack.
But James Fisher from the Delmarva Chicken Association said the specter of avian influenza is stressful for farmers who rely on getting a healthy flock of birds out to the processing plant in order to make a living.
“Growers are made nervous anytime they're told that thousands of wild birds around the region have been found with (bird flu), because that confirms for them, if you look up, you're probably looking at wild waterfowl that has (bird flu),” Fisher said.
If the flu is detected in chicken houses, some of which can house tens of thousands of birds at a time, it can force the culling of the whole flock.
When that happens, that farmer is eligible for federal reimbursement. But farms within about 4 miles are prohibited from bringing in new flocks until the farm at the center of the outbreak is cleared by public health officials — a process that can range from weeks to months.
Farmers typically rear four or five flocks per year, so Fisher said that delay can cut a farmer’s annual income by as much as a quarter.
Federal legislation introduced last week would help with that. Called the Healthy Poultry Assistance and Indemnification Act, the law would extend federal aid to nearby farms delaying their next flock of birds in the wake of a bird flu detection.
Fisher noted bird flu isn’t anything new for poultry farmers. The first cases were tracked in the United States in 2002 and poultry farmers have spent the last two decades implementing strategies to mitigate the risk of it infecting their flocks.
“They're kind of treating the chicken house the way a surgical team treats the operating room. They want to make sure the pathogens that may be out there in the wild world stay away from their birds,” he said.
That includes things like changing footwear or putting disposable covers on their feet every time they walk in and out of a chicken house; cleaning equipment; hosing off tires and keeping rodents out.
“It's not always convenient, it's not cheap,” Fisher said. “It takes time, but it's important because it can make a difference between you having a flock that stays healthy and goes to processing, or a flock that is detected with (bird flu), in which case everything stops.”
Fisher said as stressful and painful as it is to go through the process after bird flu is detected, the culling of flocks and limiting nearby production is evidence the nation’s food safety systems are working.
“We are detecting these before they enter the food system,” he said. “That's how it's supposed to be.”
