Redgrave Poultry response to Defra report on bird flu‏

Avian Influenza

We continue to fully co-operate with Defra and all the relevant authorities in their investigation in to cause of the recent avian influenza outbreak.

Defra has completed the culling of 96,600 birds at six farms, which we fully support. Avian flu was found in turkeys from one paddock at Redgrave Park farm and in a small number of turkeys at Hill Meadow farm. Defra praised the speed of the response by our staff on suspecting a notifiable disease as this allowed the earliest possible containment of the outbreak.

Redgrave Park is a free range farm where poultry was kept in field paddocks with access to housing during the day and at night. There are five paddocks for turkeys, one for geese and one for ducks. The birds did not have any access to the lake on the property as we use electrified and permanent fencing, empty ground and a road to segregate our poultry from the lake. Similarly, our ducks, geese and turkeys were not raised or housed in the same paddocks.

Defra stated that on clinical inspection the Hill Meadow flock appeared healthy, which indicates the infection was in its very early stages.

We have now seen Defra's report in to the potential causes of the outbreak and agree with many of the conclusions. Redgrave Poultry purchased the affected farms at the beginning of this year and had already identified a number of these as issues that need addressing.

Due to our commitments to our customers and the lack of available organic land, it was simply not practical to make all of the planned changes for this season.

We believe in the highest standards of organic and free range farming for these production systems, so we have looked for lessons from the recent outbreak and have identified a number of improvements that we are implementing: We will continue to discuss and review these and other improvements with DEFRA.

· Proximity to wild fowl – we will avoid farms close to areas commonly used by migratory birds. We had already identified this as a potential issue with Redgrave Park farm and planned to find alternative farm capacity for next season.

· Enhanced biosecurity – the nature of organic and free range farms in the UK means that many of them are not large enough to justify a dedicated staff. From now on, we will provide specific clothing for each farm for every worker and implement more rigorous practices and protocols. We will also improve our processes to minimise movements between farms and wherever possible operate farms large enough to justify a dedicated staff.

· Staff accommodation – our workers will not live on our farms from now on, other than when it is for operational reasons and then they will live and work on the same farm in order to minimise movements between farms.

As confirmed by the Food Standards Agency, we would like to remind everyone that properly prepared turkey meat continues to be safe to eat.

Geoffrey Buchanan,

Operations Director