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Don’t
Cry Fowl:
Virginia’s
Feathered Friends
When
the earth rumbled in Virginia two years ago, Hobey
Bauhan, president of the Virginia Poultry
Federation, had to debunk a widespread belief that
nervous fowl sense the ground trembling before we
humans do. “It would be great if we could get
poultry to warn us of earthquakes,” he told a
Washington Post reporter in December 2003. “But I
just don’t think it’s realistic.” (“In
Quake’s Wake, A Flood of Impressions,” December
11, 2003).
While
our commercial birds can’t predict natural
disasters, the Commonwealth’s poultry and egg
industries generate top dollar in the agricultural
sector. The more than 880 chicken farms, 330 turkey
farms and five processing companies, which include
familiar brands such as Perdue Farms and Tyson
Foods, employ 12,000 people and have contributed
more than $615 million annually to the state’s
economy in recent years. (Virginia
Poultry Federation Facts and Figures).
The
bulk of that income comes from broiler chickens.
According to 2003 figures (the most current
available), Virginia farmers produced more than 265
million broiler chickens, 23 million turkeys and 744
million eggs. The state ranks 9th in the nation for
broiler production and 5th for turkey. In fact,
Virginia produced half of the turkeys consumed in
the U.S. several weeks back at Thanksgiving.
Broilers,
chickens raised specifically for their meat instead
of eggs, were developed in the 1920s and 1930s. A
Delaware woman, Mrs. Wilmer Steele, is credited as
the founder of the commercial broiler industry. In
1923, she produced a flock of 500 broiler chickens.
Three years later, she was able to build a broiler
house that could accommodate 10,000 birds. (National
Chicken Council). Perhaps this is why
Virginia’s Eastern Shore on the Delmarva
Peninsula, is one of the state’s two major poultry
producing regions. (The other is the Shenandoah
Valley.) The conditions for raising poultry are good
weather; adequate land and water; and access to corn
and soybeans, used in poultry feed.
Raising
poultry is so essential to some local Commonwealth
economies that when Texas-based Pilgrim’s Pride
announced it would close its Shenandoah Valley
turkey processing plant, a group of local turkey
producers scurried to form a cooperative to buy it.
Even Rockingham County, where the plant was located,
and the largest turkey-producing county in the U.S.,
chipped in $100,000. Now, the Virginia Poultry
Growers Cooperative operates the plant, saving many
of the 1,300 jobs that would have been lost and 200
farmers from possible bankruptcy. (“Co-op
Completes Purchase of Virginia Turkey Plant,”
Rural Cooperatives, November/December 2004).
But,
Virginia’s chickens and turkeys are globetrotters,
as well. VPF President Bauhan testified before the
U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee
a few years back on international trade agreements.
Apparently, U.S. consumers prefer the front half of
broilers – the breast meat, while the rest of the
world provides a potential market for the back half
– the legs, etc. (“Multilateral and Bilateral
Agricultural Trade Negotiations,” Federal Document
Clearing House, Congressional Testimony, June 18,
2003.) Virginia farmers export poultry to Russia,
Hong Kong, Mexico, South Korea and the Caribbean.
Virginia’s
poultry industry is not without its critics, from
environmentalists concerned about waste pollution in
waterways (when chicken litter is used as
fertilizer); animal rights activists lobbying for
more humane production and slaughtering conditions;
and those who fear the spread of avian flu to humans
in the U.S.
In
1999, Virginia enacted the Poultry Waste Management
Program. Growers with 20,000 or more broilers or
laying hens or 11,000 or more turkeys were required
to obtain special permits for poultry waste
management by October 2001. Still, a when a large
number of fish died in the Shenandoah River last
July, the event produced an exchange of letters to
the editor in the Washington Post between poultry
industry spokesman Bauhan and an Annapolis
environmentalist (“A Cleaner Virginia Poultry
Industry,” August 5, 2005 and “If These Are Best
Practices,” August 8, 2005).
The
industry also defends its treatment of poultry,
explaining poultry is raised in large, open
structures known as growout houses not cages, with
ventilation systems and heaters and adequate food,
water and space per bird. (National
Chicken Council -- Animal Welfare). Ironically,
consumers who prefer to purchase free-range poultry
because of concerns about crowding may contribute to
the last and most significant problem – the spread
of avian flu. “The problem with free range poultry
production,” says Dr. Elizabeth Krushinskie, a
poultry veterinarian who headed the American
Association of Avian Pathologists in 2004, “is
exactly what the name implies – the birds are out
on open land with exposure to disease-carrying wild
bird populations.”
Virginia’s
poultry farmers have experienced several avian flu
epidemics, the last in 2002, which threatened the
industry rather than the population at large. More
than 4.7 million chickens and turkeys were destroyed
in the four-county Shenandoah poultry-raising area.
Disappointed youngsters who raised show chickens for
state fairs were banned from participating that
year. The Delmarva Poultry Industry, which did not
experience the epidemic, even cancelled its annual
meeting, so farmers would not spread the disease.
Avian
flu is again in the news because of the virulent
strain of H5N1 (“type Z”) that has required the
destruction of millions of poultry in Southeast Asia
and has jumped to about 120 humans. At present the
strain has never been seen in the U.S. Should it
arrive, there are various industry measures that
might keep any impact in check. Biosecurity at major
poultry farms and processing plants requires
coveralls, boots and hairnets. Migratory birds in
Alaska and the West Coast are continuously tested.
Individuals are restricted from visiting U.S.
poultry farms if they have traveled to infected
areas. Backyard flocks and open air poultry markets
in major cities are harder to regulate. They worry
poultry industry and health officials the most
(“Poultry Farm Tactics May Thwart Bird Flu,” USA
Today, November 14, 2005).
Still,
chickens have been with us for thousands of years
and turkeys, native to North America, domesticated
for several hundred. Virginians will probably
provide white and dark meat to chicken and turkey
aficionados for sometime to come.
Next:
The Petersburg Pluton: Volcanoes in Virginia
January 3, 2006
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