The recently appointed Chairman of the Acting On Campylobacter (ACT) Board, Richard Macdonald, and Defra's chief vet, Nigel Gibbens, joined the poultry breakout session at NFU15.
Former NFU DG Mr Macdonald stressed advanced biosecurity as the primary way of reducing campylobactor risk. Double barriers, continual training, limiting the number of people who go into the sheds, training for catchers were all on hs list of "collective marginal gains."
He said he believed in farmer incentives and rewarding excellence, as well as penalising poor practice. He added: "Is there a correlation between welfare and campylobactor? There is early evidence that no thinning might have significant difference on campylobactor levels."
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He also said ACT would look at logistics and the steam cleaning of crates and he asked if the industry should be looking at neck flap removal and what that might look like to consumers.
Defra's Chief Veterinary Officer Nigel Gibbens went through the lessons learnt from the recent outbreaks of Avian Flu (AI) and the implications for the industry.
Mr Gibbens said that farmers know when they have an outbreak of high path AI because all of their birds die, but that is not the case in ducks. He also said that low path outbreaks can become high path if left unchecked.
He was encouraged by Mr Macdonald's talk of increased biosecurity to counteract campylobactor because such measures could only benefit work to fight AI.
Mr Gibbens encouraged farmers to understand all the links into and out of their business to enable Defra to make a quicker diagnosis.
"Depopulation is now pretty professional, but the face of disease control is savage when you are culling a lot of birds," said Mr Gibbens.
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Secondary cleaning and disinfection of farms after a confirmed AI outbreak does not necessarily have to be done by specialists, but it does require a thorough cleaning followed by a 48-hour break and then another deep cleaning. Any manure from the farm has to be disposed of by specialists.
Jeremy Hall said that it cost his business £7 million to dispose of manure at an incinerator in Bristol after an outbreak in 2007.
One of the main concerns from delegates was whether Defra had enough staff to deal with an AI outbreak. Mr Gibbens said that an outbreak over multiple sites would put a strain on the service, but that they could call on private contractors in an emergency.
In more general terms, the chief vet said that poultry "has got a good story to tell, but people do not like intensive agriculture".
"There is great scrutiny of intensive practices, most recently our abattoirs. We must not let our abattoirs let us down," he added.
He said that the genetic work in strengthening the keel bone and legs of broilers must continue and that farmers that focussed purely on production concerns would not get it right.
The report from the university beak trimming trials have yet to be unveiled and MPs would not make a decision on a potential ban until the evidence was in.
He added: "If they do not ban beak trimming, that is not the end of the story. The industry needs to keep pursuing systems that will not need to use beak trimming, because that it what consumers expect."