AMSTERDAM: Agriculture has helped make the Netherlands rich, but experts warn that the density of farms and the increasing number of animals in one of the most intensive agricultural sectors in the world make it vulnerable to disesase.
The discovery last Sunday of a highly infectious strain of bird flu at a Dutch farm forced officials to impose a three-day lockdown on the transport of all poultry and related products.
But the transport freeze, which cost the industry ¤100m ($120m), did not stop the discovery of similar or identical strains at two nearby farms, forcing the already expensive halt to be extended to a full week.
“When there is a disease in the Netherlands, which is the country in the world where the concentration of farms is the highest, be it for poultry or pigs, it hurts,” said Bernard Vallat, head of the World Organisation for Animal Health.
“The Netherlands are really vulnerable because of this density (of farms),” he told Reuters.
Dutch agriculture defends its practices, with the poultry industry pointing out it has invested hugely in hygiene since the last bird flu epidemic 11 years ago.
While the industry has become an incredible source of wealth -- agriculture amounted for 16 percent of 2013 exports— efficiency has come at a cost. Experts said having so many farms and animals packed together has made the system highly vulnerable to disease.
The farming industry runs at a rate that even the transport lockdown could not stop. In three days, around 7.5 million chicks hatched in incubation warehouses with nowhere to go.
The latest infection of bird flu—the ninth animal epidemic in the Netherlands in less than 20 years—has already forced the culling of more than 200,000 birds.Reuters
