While the egg industry has so far sidestepped direct impacts from the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak, precautionary efforts to prevent the virus’s spread may significantly impact free-range egg production.
In South Australia, the latest surge in H5N1 cases has raised alarms about its potential threat to both the wild bird populations and commercial poultry operations.
Rowan McMonnies, managing director of Australian Eggs, highlighted that the industry is now navigating a more hazardous operational landscape for the foreseeable future.
He noted that the virus’s presence in Australia’s wildlife signals that H5 avian influenza has established itself as a persistent challenge for the medium term.
According to McMonnies, total eradication of the virus seems improbable, but the industry has been preparing for such an outbreak scenario for several years.
“Important actions are being taken to address the risks. Strict biosecurity is being maintained with enhanced measures to deter wild birds and limit crossover into egg farms,” he said.
“The industry has also worked closely with authorities to improve response processes based on overseas learnings so that where farms are impacted, they can bounce back faster, limiting any impact on egg supply.”
Since 2018, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has enforced the standard that for an egg product to be considered free range it must be laid by hens that have meaningful and regular access to outdoor range during daylight, are able to roam and forage in a stocking density of 10,000 hens or less per hectare, and that the density be displayed on produced products.
However, as of July, the ACCC confirmed it won’t take enforcement action for breaches of free-range egg labelling standards due to farms choosing to house birds inside for biosecurity reasons.
‘Confine birds to sheds’
Limiting free-range environments is a biosecurity measure many chicken farms are using.
“The advice is to confine birds to sheds,” microbiologist and food safety expert Associate Professor Julian Cox told SBS News.
“Birds of free-ranging pick up the virus and interact — potentially spreading it to noncommercial species …. or wild birds in the vicinity could bring it into commercial poultry that are free-ranging,” he explained.
Cox said it’s a measure anyone who owns and cares for poultry should consider.
“If you’ve got some kind of coop, lock them in the coop. It’s for their own good.”
What could an outbreak mean for food safety and security?
Cox, who also serves as the scientific director of the Food Safety Information Council, said if an outbreak does occur in a commercial facility, there are processes that would be implemented to restrict its impact.
“If we start to see any sign of illness in birds …. what is likely to happen is that that flock will be destroyed, the birds will be culled,” he said.
If an outbreak occurs in a region with many commercial facilities, Cox said it’s likely all birds in the “entire area” will be culled.
He said it’s a similar method to a “firebreak for bushfires”.
Cox said that if a major outbreak were to occur, the “worst-case scenario” would be that thousands of birds would be culled, causing a significant supply drop in meat and eggs.
“Cleaning and restocking can take some weeks … four to five months before flocks are replaced and producing eggs – minimum for six weeks for meat chickens,” he said.
“There would be a lag in the market before we got back to the normal level of production, and that relies on the confidence that all traces of the virus are gone.”
As Australia faces potential further outbreaks of bird flu, Cox reiterates that poultry meat and eggs are safe for human consumption.
“Ingesting food is not a mechanism for transmission … it’s really about interacting with live animals,” he said.
“Our food chain is so long from primary production through to purchase and consumption that it’s likely that any [sick] flocks of egg-producing birds or meat birds are going to be culled before they get anywhere near the consumer.
“We’re simply just not going to see the flu coming into our households through the purchasing of food.”