Aussie egg farms to pay for bird flu clean up costs

All egg farmers in Australia will be forced to pay for the costs of the avian influenza outbreak in New South Wales even though it was caused by poor on-farm practices and inadequate biosecurity procedures on the individual farms involved.

A new levy of 1.4 cents on every chick purchased by farmers will be charged, on top of existing levies. A business case has been submitted to the Department of Agriculture for an increase in the Emergency Animal Disease Response Levy.  Egg farmers have six weeks to object to the new levy so If think it's unfair on farmers who do the right thing,  object to this proposal. Send an email to AECL at contacts@aecl.org and also to the Department of Agriculture in Canberra at levies.management@agriculture.gov.au. It seems odd that a coalition Government which publicly supports small business and believes in individual responsibilty would choose a collective approach to bail out businesses which made poor decisions.

The levy increase proposal is to repay an amount of $395,000 to the Australian Government for the egg industry’s share of costs incurred for the responses associated with an outbreak of LPAI among ducks during January 2012; an outbreak of HPAI among laying hens in November 2012; and another outbreak of HPAI among laying hens in October 2013. Many farmers are asking "why should we be penalised for the greed of a couple of operators and their decisions to ignore normal business practices and biosecurity procedures." To compare the way farmers are treated, in the European Union, 50% of costs associated with the eradication or control of Avian Influenza are covered by the Government.  I'm not suggesting that should be the case here but I don't understand why Aussie farmers who have met all biosecurity and food safety processes should be penalised to the same extent as the clowns in the industry who have been chasing quick dollars.  Where is the equity?