Business leaders in Suffolk and Norfolk are calling on new environment secretary Thérèse Coffey to tackle "serious flaws" in the government response to a devastating outbreak of bird flu which has swept the region.
Problems with the compensation scheme designed to help farmers and delays in the culling of flocks and granting of licences to move birds are hitting the two counties' embattled poultry industry - which has been shattered by an unprecedented outbreak of the disease, they have warned.
New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership and Norfolk and Suffolk County Councils joined farming representatives for a crunch meeting of the Norfolk & Suffolk Poultry Group to discuss the crisis.
They are calling on Dr Coffey to deliver more support to the sector - and for tougher government intervention. Industry representatives are urging the government to form a long-term strategy to prevent future outbreaks of the deadly disease - including a vaccination programme.
The meeting was attended by poultry farmers and processors, and industry groups including the National Farmers' Union and British Poultry Council and was chaired by LEP chief executive Chris Starkie.
“Our region is being hit harder than any other by this crisis. We want to back our colleagues in the poultry sector and use our influence to secure more support for those who risk going out of business in the fallout from this," said Mr Starkie.
“We need the environment secretary Thérèse Coffey to lead from the front and ensure that government compensation for the culling and restocking of entire flocks is fit for purpose, and licences for the movement of birds are expedited so producers are not left without an income.
“This is not just a health crisis but one that poses a serious risk to a mainstay of our local economy. That necessitates rethinking past approaches that have worked satisfactorily for past outbreaks.
"This is on an unprecedented scale and a wider strategy is needed that builds in realistic and meaningful compensation, paid in a timely and predictable manner. We also need to look at other issues such as export, vaccination, and how we prevent this from happening in the future.”
Norfolk and Suffolk have been at the epicentre of an outbreak which in October along recorded 88 cases across the UK, affecting 2.7m birds, the meeting heard. It has affected large-scale commercial enterprises as well as backyard flocks - and appears to be spreading into neighbouring Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire.
The scale of the outbreak has stretched culling teams - and has meant some birds are already dead before they arrive - causing unnecessary distress for the birds and heartbreak for farmers, delegates at the meeting were told.
Meanwhile, compensation procedures are "inadequate" - leaving farmers without income and unsure of what they will receive, farmers complained. Delays in movement licences were also hitting neighbouring farms stuck in disease control zones.
The Norfolk & Suffolk Poultry Group was launched in the autumn of 2020 as part of the region’s response to the Covid pandemic - after the poultry industry was hit by a series of crises including worker shortages and factory closures caused by Covid infections.
The region's poultry industry is huge - with Norfolk and Suffolk providing around 18% to 20% of the UK's chickens, turkeys and ducks. Around 11m - of 41% - of English turkeys come from the region, and the sector employs 14,000 people in an industry value at £557m, said the LEP.
A national housing order is set to come into force across England on Monday, November 7, which will make it a legal requirement to house all flocks of kept birds.
The order extends a mandatory lockdown already in force in the hot spot area of Suffolk, Norfolk and parts of Essex after government vets announced an increase in the national risk of bird flu in wild birds to "very high".
Chief veterinary officer Christine Middlemiss said: "We are now facing this year, the largest ever outbreak of bird flu and are seeing rapid escalation in the number of cases on commercial farms and in backyard birds across England.
"The risk of kept birds being exposed to disease has reached a point where it is now necessary for all birds to be housed until further notice.
"Scrupulous biosecurity and separating flocks in all ways, from wild birds remain the best form of defence. Whether you keep just a few birds or thousands, from Monday, November 7, onwards you must keep your indoors.
"This decision has not been taken lightly, but is the best way to protect your birds from this highly infectious disease," she added.
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