Your report (Fears of huge production losses as bird flu spreads, July 13) refers. If this virus spreads there will be market shortages with resultant price increases, which can be large. For some years now importers have battled against government-prescribed duty increases on imported poultry. We have consistently warned of severe problems should any serious disease break out, but this has fallen on deaf ears. Now the chickens have come home to roost, so to speak. Local veterinary authorities have recently started using health issues to curtail imports, which are nothing short of unfair trade practices, in contravention of World Trade Organisation codes. Imports from the Netherlands have been stopped despite the country being cleared by the World Organisation for Animal Health after an avian flu outbreak was resolved. Local vets now wish to send a fact-finding mission to the Netherlands, something they have never done after the resolution of disease issues. Such a fact-finding miss...
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