Watch for ‘Profound’ Mental Health Strain on Poultry Producers — Modern Poultry
By Jeff Winton, Founder and Chairman, Rural Minds
Owner, Wall Street Dairy, LLC
Chautauqua County, New York
Raising food animals on a commercial scale presents innumerable challenges under ordinary circumstances. The emergence of COVID-19, however, magnified those challenges to unprecedented levels.
Few in the industry will ever forget worker illness that caused plants to slow or suspend production or the impact of lost food service business. Add to this highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which surfaced while COVID was still circulating.
The threat HPAI poses to the poultry industry is expected to continue. It may even worsen because the virus appears to be more prevalent in wild birds, potentially increasing the spread to commercial flocks—and the continued stress it poses to those in the poultry industry.