One need only pause for a moment over Pierre Buffo’s magnificent photograph (LinkedIn) for the rural spirit to awaken without the need for any treatise. Under the apt motto “élevé en plein air, élevé en plein Gers”, the light captures a visual symphony in which the elements merge into an unbreakable trinity: the birds, the people, and the land. In that green meadow, beneath the protective silhouette of the church crowning the hillside, it is not only hens that peck the ground; culture breathes there, tradition pulses, and a living landscape takes shape — sculpted by time and the accumulated knowledge of generations.
Yet viewing this canvas from Spain, a profound melancholy becomes entwined with indignation. We must be painfully frank: this photograph is, today, an unattainable mirage, a landscape that is legally forbidden in our country. And not by any whim of nature, but by the suffocating steamroller of a public administration that legislates with its back turned to the land.
A forced exile has been imposed upon us, born of a terrifying short-sightedness.
The regulations require the same minimum distance from a population centre for a massive industrial operation housing millions of birds as for a modest rural farm with barely a few hundred. The same cold and disproportionate yardstick is applied to all, rendering invisible and penalising a production model that accounts for more than half of all laying hen farms in Spain; a model that our society longs for and that consumers applaud.
To this spatial banishment is added a blanket confinement order that defies reason. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food justifies this lockdown by invoking its spatial model DIFLUsión, whose theoretical premises clash head-on with the stubborn empirical epidemiological reality. Since 13 November 2025, the confinement of absolutely all poultry in Spain has been mandatory.
THE FACT IS BEING IGNORED THAT not a single primary case has ever been recorded on farms where birds have outdoor access.
The lockdown is decreed as a way to sidestep avian influenza, turning a blind eye to incontrovertible evidence: not a single primary case has ever been recorded on farms where birds have outdoor access. Our free-range and organic farms have never been the engine driving disease spread, as can be seen in the breakdown of the 2.93 million farm birds affected by Avian Influenza in 2025.
When outbreaks struck, they spread like wildfire inside high-density industrial sheds — not under open skies or across meadows.
Policy that prioritises “political correctness” over Poultry Health
While Europe, through the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), colours our maps with a “very low” risk level, our administration — taking a more political stance, driven by cowardice and held captive by the dictates of political correctness — maintains an indiscriminate and disproportionate lockdown. In doing so, it not only stigmatises our production model, but also undermines the prestige of our highest-value products.
Detected cases of Avian Influenza in wild birds and detailed risk by region and country. This image is a screenshot of the situation on Friday 27 March 2026; for the risk updated in real time, visit BIRD FLU RADAR
Casting open air and contact with nature as the “great danger” is a monumental error — one that, conveniently, benefits only those who champion the most industrialised forms of production and who, at heart, would prefer to have captive consumers at the shelf rather than free and informed ones.
Rural poultry should be the unquestionable standard-bearer of “Brand Spain” if we are genuinely determined to conquer premium and high-added-value markets. Our producers urgently need that differentiation to earn a living with a minimum of dignity. We cannot, and must not, compete in the mud of “cheap protein” against regions of the world that operate under lower welfare standards. Those regions have never developed the welfare state that defines Europe — a global paradigm and a hallmark of identity that conditions, elevates, and dignifies our production. If we allow administrative confinement to hollow out the standard of excellence, we will be squandering our heritage.
Casting open air and contact with nature as the “great danger” is a monumental error
Birds, people and territory: an indivisible whole
Finally, to ignore all of this is to ignore the ecology of our own existence. Removing people and their animals from the land — from this more than worthy and sustainable way of life — does not return the countryside to a Lost Paradise. Human absence does not spontaneously give rise to a garden of Eden; it condemns us to the chaos of abandonment that would take centuries to find a mature equilibrium. Without the birds and without the farmer, brambles devour the field margins, paths vanish beneath the undergrowth, and the biodiversity built up over generations disappears. A rural landscape without activity is exactly like an abandoned building: it is the architecture of demolition, nature’s silent ruin.
At AviAlter we raise our voice against this absurdity. Birds, people, and territory are an indivisible whole. It is time for courage and technical rigour to replace fear in the corridors of power. It is time to open the doors to the light and allow scenes as beautiful and full of life as Pierre Buffo’s to cease being a forbidden longing and become our own reality.
AVIALTER
About AviAlter:
AviAlter is the Spanish association for alternative poultry farming. Founded in 2007, it is an active member of ERPA (European Rural Poultry Association) and is recognised by other professional associations in the poultry sector and by the Ministry of Agriculture itself. Among its activities, AviAlter is working across various areas of current regulations affecting differentiated poultry meat and alternative laying hen systems. Its official website: www.avialter.com
Further reading:
-. News about AviAlter
-. Other OPINION articles on NeXusAvicultura
-. Mandatory confinement in Spain
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