French poultry farmers fret over British bird flu

ST GILLES PLIGEAUX, France, Feb 6 (Reuters) Michelle Le Mener's poultry business had just began to pick up after a slump caused by the bird flu outbreak in France a year ago but she worries the latest case in Britain will dent sales again.

At her farm perched atop a hill in central Brittany in northwestern France, she keeps 9,000 chickens that lay eggs used to hatch chicks that grow to be the kind of birds that are bought for a roast or a coq au vin.

The bird flu outbreak last February in wild birds and then turkeys in eastern France led to the culling of thousands of poultry, creating a shortage of eggs.

And with that outbreak fading in consumers' memories, poultry demand has been on the rise.

''Things had been going well, and then here we go again. I hope there won't be too much impact,'' she said of the news that a the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu had been discovered on a turkey farm in eastern England.

''We are always wondering what the market will be like. We have to pay for the chicken farm and when there are no chickens in it, there is no salary. Things had really picked up well.'' Le Mener's family-run farm is typical in Brittany, a region producing around 40 per cent of the nation's poultry meat. They decided to diversify into poultry nine years ago to boost income when their rest of their farm, which counts 35 dairy cows and 25 hectares of cereals, was struggling.

The hills around are dotted with the long hangars where the poultry is kept, often behind high fences and warning signs about cleanliness and the need to stick to strict hygiene rules.

Just down the road on the side of another hill, Pascal Le Lostec is tending to her 28,000 chickens that produce eggs for eating. The radio plays while she works but the chickens can still be heard clucking inside.

''It's frightening,'' she said of the British bird flu case.

''This case is a serious one and the strain is linked to human loss as well.'' MEDIA HYPE One of the most worrying aspects of a bird flu outbreak for farmers is how it is treated by the media.

They say last year the papers and television were filled with doomsday stories, making people scared to eat poultry or eggs even though they are safe if cooked properly.

''Of course bird flu is worrying but I think the media last year exaggerated a bit,'' said Alain Le Potier, whose farm has 9,000 eating turkeys, similiar to the 160,000 that were culled on the farm in England.

''They almost said that you must stop eating poultry, that everyone would be ill if you ate it. The media was talking about catastrophes before bird flu had really been explained.'' He also said the press did not make a clear enough distinction with bird flu in Asia where there have been over a hundred human deaths but where people often share their dwellings with their poultry.

That is not the case in France, Le Potier said, where poultry farmers are subject to rigorous hygiene rules.

The local newspaper, Ouest France, carryed a front-page headline yesterday about the weekend discovery in England but appropriately, the farmers say, it was in small letters and did not cause much alarm.

''It was a bit over the top last time but hopefully now with the presidential elections, they'll have other things to keep them busy,'' said Le Mener.

REUTERS SY RK1712