RUSSIA is the latest country to impose a trade ban on poultry from Britain.

Japan has already banned all poultry, eggs and breeding birds from the UK and Hong Kong has banned exports from Norfolk, which is at the centre of the avian flu alert.

Ministers are working hard to lift the bans and are lobbying ambassadors in London.

The Government is also working through the European Commission to try to rescue the Russian trade. The country automatically bans all poultry imports from any country with the H5 or H7 avian flu virus.

Peter Mandelson, the European Trade Commissioner, is now being urged to put pressure on Russia to accept most British poultry imports and to restrict produce from Norfolk only.

Russia agreed similar trade deals with Germany and France after outbreaks of the lethal H5N1 strain on chicken farms. The virus found on three farms at North Tuddenham is the less virulent H7N3 strain and ministers are optimistic that trade will resume. Total poultry export sales are worth more than £600 million. Even though direct trade between the UK and Russia is thought to be small, large quantities of British chicken are processed in French and German companies for export to Russia. Chicken companies are anxious to keep this business.

Mr Mandelson was also urged yesterday to take action against Japan’s ban on British imports. Under international trade rules countries can impose a ban only if there is a high pathogenic flu strain outbreak, but the virus in Norfolk is of low pathogen.

Richard Howitt, Labour MEP for the East of England, has called on Mr Mandelson to intervene now to prevent other countries joining in a ban. He said: “We must challenge this ban now to stop other countries following suit. If we don’t nip this in the bud now we could find ourselves denied access to valuable markets for many years to come.”

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is also questioning the validity of the Japanese ban under World Health Organisation guidelines.

The Japanese Government said it was taking action to protect its domestic poultry.

Defra officials are nervous about how other countries will react to the Norfolk outbreak. The latest advice on the department’s website said: “Even though this is a case of low pathogenic avian influenza, we cannot assume that those countries which require freedom from highly pathogenic avian influenza will necessarily be willing to accept UK exports.”

A loss of trade will hit Norfolk hard. The chicken industry accounts for almost £1 billion. There are about 13 million birds in the county and 40,000 jobs depend on the business.

Chicken producers in the county are still nervous about the arrival of avian flu even though it was the less virulent strain.

Companies even tried to stop chicken manure from Banhams farms from being sent to the same power station for burning in case the bug spread between workmen or vehicles. Only one Banhams farm has been infected with the virus. This was Whitham Lodge farm, the first case in Norfolk, which was confirmed a week ago.

But a further 30 premises operated by Banhams have been placed under restriction. Rival companies wanted to halt the manure from all these other Banhams units being accepted by Fibrepower at their Thetford plant.

The issue was resolved after state veterinary surgeons visited the plant to ensure that strict hygiene controls were in place for staff and that vehicles were cleaned and disinfected after each delivery.

There are no new cases of the flu outbreak and all tests on other farms around the country where chickens have died or egg production has dropped have been clear of the virus.

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