Food Costs are Already High. Bird Flu Could Make Things Worse.

Dec 15, 2021

The news has been filled with stories this year of poultry woes, from the struggles of workers processing our chicken in unsafe conditions to the challenges of restaurants and schools getting the chicken they need. And of course, there’s the rapidly rising cost of food that we’re all dealing with at the grocery store. (Sticker shock has reached new heights in Hawaii, where a friend of mine recently found an organic chicken for an eye-popping $8.99 a pound—$48 for the whole bird.) If things haven’t seemed bad enough, avian influenza is about to make it worse. Bird flu is raging in Asia and Europe, writes Bloomberg, with more than 40 countries experiencing outbreaks since May. The United Kingdom is currently grappling with its biggest-ever outbreak, and more than a million birds have been culled since November in Poland. All these outbreaks are likely to put more pressure on production, affect costs, disrupt U.S. trade, and lessen the availability of free-range eggs in Europe.

Click here to see more...

Video: 2026 T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science - Dan Weary

T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science: "Using science to assess and improve the welfare of dairy cattle"

Dan Weary is a Professor at the University of British Columbia. Dan did his BSc and MSc at McGill and Doctorate at Oxford before co-founding UBC’s Animal Welfare Program where he now co-directs this active research group. His research focuses on understanding the perspectives of animals and applying these insights to develop methods of assessing animal welfare and improving the lives of animals. His work has helped drive changes in practices (including the adoption of higher milk rations for calves and pain management for disbudding) and housing methods (including the adoption of social housing for pre-weaned calves). He also studies cow comfort and lameness, social interactions among cows, and interactions between cows, human handlers and technologies like automated millking systems that are increasingly used on farms. His presentation will outline key questions in cattle welfare, highlight recent UBC research addressing them, and showcase innovative methods for improving the lives of cattle and their caretakers.