For
foreigners coming to Egypt, one of the most pleasant sights is to see a market
stall or corner shop selling live chickens and ducks. To have fresh chicken from
a bird which was running about an hour before is something of a novelty for
those brought up in the land of frozen and ready wrapped meat and poultry. It is
reassuring for those who worry about the health and condition of the birds they
eat to see them clucking about on rooftops in the sunshine. The sound of a
rooster crowing at dawns is one of the most marvelous sounds in nature, subhan
Allah, and is all but extinct in the west.
This
is why it was very eerie to go round the streets and markets after the bird flu
scare arrived in Egypt and to find that all the chickens and ducks had
disappeared, the turkeys, the pigeons and even the rabbits. Where have all these
birds gone, I asked myself. My fear was that the authorities had responded to
this outbreak of bird flu by culling healthy birds or have they all gone into
hiding? Eggs are still available and one wonders where they are coming from,
both the large, clean eggs reminiscent of the battery farm eggs we used to have
in Britain and the higher quality small eggs known as baladi eggs, which
resemble what the British know as free-range eggs, coming from healthy birds
which have been allowed to run free. Otherwise, there has been no chicken on
sale apart from in one or two of the very large western style supermarkets and
then mostly frozen.
It
reminds me of a case in Britain in 2001 when there was an outbreak of
foot-and-mouth disease in cattle.
I
understood it was quite a nasty disease for cattle but not threatening for
humans. The key point was that the British authorities considered it to be a
very contagious disease and knew that the affected animals could not be sold for
meat. This was obviously a great threat to the meat industry.
Subsequently,
the UK government reacted to the outbreak with a military style campaign to cull
not only sick animals but also healthy cows and sheep and any that had the
remotest possibility of coming into contact with the disease. All movement of
farmers and cattle was suspended and so farmers had to rely on phones and
computers for information. All cattle markets were obviously suspended so that
the usual sources of reliable information were curtailed. If a case of
foot-and-mouth was found on a farm it would be cordoned off and all the cattle
culled. In some cases farmers who had been on their farms for generations lost
irreplaceable stock and rare breeds. Although it was said to be a voluntary
cull, reports came in of farmers being at the receiving end of considerable
intimidation from officials to enter their farms, mark their property and do
away with their cattle and sheep. A report in the Observer from the February
following the year of the outbreak quoted a rural radio journalist who knew of a
case where a farm was found to be infected. Following this 24 neighboring farms
were taken over as dangerous contacts.
The
government strategy seemed to be illogical for several reasons. The move was
supposed to stop the spread of foot-and-mouth. However reports about the
aftermath of this outbreak spoke of contaminated vehicles removing carcasses
from infected areas and transferring them to clean areas, and also of government
vets moving from infected to uninfected farms thus causing the disease to
spread. There was a case where a farm was inspected and declared
foot-and-mouth-free by the vet only for the farmers to get a visit from a
representative from the government department of rural affairs saying that this
vet had come from an infected farm and they would have to cull the poor farmer's
stock.
Another
factor which seemed to go against the government's stated aim of controlling the
disease was the safe disposal of dead animals. For a long time during the
outbreak the disposal of carcasses was not in line with the rate of culling of
cattle so we had the horrible sight of cattle piled up rotting causing much more
of a health hazard. Farmers and their families were totally devastated so
attached were they to their fine stock. It was not until Prime Minister Tony
Blair responded to public anger and brought in an army brigadier to speed up
matters that the matter of rotting cattle was taken in hand.
Throughout
this process, the government resisted all calls by farmers and other
agricultural experts to use a vaccine to attempt to save the British beef and
lamb industry. Their argument was that the vaccination itself would be a stigma
and the export industry would suffer as a result.
However
many did not understand their logic in trying apparently to save the British
meat industry by closing down all the farms and markets and killing all the
cattle.
I
seem to remember that supermarkets remained stocked with meat from other
countries.
The
minister at the time, Margaret Beckett, was charged with setting up a whole new
department to orchestrate the response to this outbreak and to oversee
agriculture and rural affairs in general. Thus, the food and agriculture
ministry was completely reorganized, some say not for the national benefit but
to make the British industry more in harmony with the needs of European and
world markets. This is apparently what the public demand. They want fresh beef
and lamb and they want it now, certified healthy with no doubt about cattle
disease, thus from anywhere in the world.
Surely
Allah will blame us for destroying all this healthy cattle without very good
reason and so willfully wasting the food provided in our country.
Why
do we leave the food He has provided close at hand for that which comes from
afar?
As
far as I know foot-and-mouth was not a life-threatening disease. Figures
reported in the UK press put the number of head of sheep and cattle killed at 11
million, a mind-boggling figure and yet a very tiny percentage of these showed
traces of the disease.
Coming
back to the chicken saga here in Egypt I wonder if they might be in danger of
taking a wrong turn here as a result of the arrival of this strain of bird flu.
In this case it is true that this is different from foot-and-mouth because it
can be a deadly disease for humans but it is mainly restricted to birds and can
be carried anyway by wild migrating birds. So will destroying healthy poultry
help? The idea is that a cull of chickens and ducks will halt the risk of
transfer to humans. This current appearance of the H5N1 has apparently been
around since 1997 and there have only been 170 confirmed cases of human
infection since 2003. Nearly all those affected had direct contact with live
birds rather than getting it from eating chicken. Is this a case of taking
caution to the nth degree? After all, the world knows that children die daily of
diarrhea in southern Africa and other regions but we don't seem to have the same
urgency about removing that risk and providing them with pure water sources at
break-neck speed which is what should be done.
I
have found the abundance of good live chickens to be one of the great blessing
of Egypt. Al-hamdu-lillah, they can be chosen and killed on site so
customers can witness the slaughter. Lovely fresh chicken.
In
the West people are going out of their way to pay extra to get free-range eggs
and eat chickens which have been allowed access to open spaces and healthy feed
and not live caged in like sardines. These days fewer and fewer people tolerate
battery eggs and battery bred chickens even though they are much cheaper. There
were several scandals about the conditions of battery chickens years ago and the
low standard of their feed and hygiene. The demand for this abundance of
chickens was from the public demanding specific chicken pieces in various forms
rather than buying and using a whole chicken. Also the demand for eggs was ever
increasing, both to eat them whole, or for use in prepared goods.
Now
I hope, bi'-ithn Allah, that Egypt doesn't move towards intensive rearing
of chickens in closed cages as a result of this scare. In this lovely hot
country with plentiful corn, chickens and ducks can have the best life and are
best reared locally in small groups.
Allah,
subhanhu wa ta'ala wants us to treat His creatures well and if we do we'll
get the barakah from them.
I
say, keep Egypt's chickens free range as soon as chicken and duck come back on
the menu.
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