Poultry industry can alleviate poverty

Dr. A H M Mustain Billah

Bangladesh is a developing country where more than 40 per cent people are under the poverty line. This is because of poor intake of protein. The poultry industry is growing very fast in the country providing cheap protein to the common people. The industry is also providing direct and indirect employment opportunity for about 6 million people of the country, which accounts for 1.6 per cent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP).
   The poultry industry in Bangladesh has immense opportunity with a 50-60 per cent annual growth. Currently, this sector involves $2 billion of investment, while domestic birds at farms and households are estimated to be around 20 crore. Outbreaks of the deadly virus had badly shaken the country's poultry sector with reported losses of over $600 million, as well as the closure of thousands of poultry farms. Almost all rural households keep chickens as a source of cheap protein, with about 2.4 million rural women depending on backyard chicken farming as their main source of livelihood.
   Monthly consumption of poultry meat has declined from 26,600 metric tonnes (mt) in October 2007 to 12,000 mt in March 2008 -- a fall of nearly 55 percent in four months. It is reported that about 50 percent of poultry farms have been closed and 2.5 million people out of the 6 million involved in the industry have been made jobless. In fact, many people have removed chicken and eggs from their menus altogether.
   Poultry litter on the other hand has tremendous potentiality for generating biogas and rural energy. Field experience revealed that there is high demand for biogas connection in the rural areas. Only missing thing is the initiative, support and some policy intervention at community level. Thus sensitisation of community people, strong political commitment, trained personnel, mobilization of financial resources, establishing the institutional network, strengthen coordination between central and local level (local government institutions) are required to improve surveillance and control measures.
   Bird flu, or avian influenza, has caused an estimated US$746 million in losses to the country's poultry sector. According to the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, there are about 150,000 poultry farms in Bangladesh, which produce 320,000 mt of meat and over five million eggs annually. This also indicated the loss of cheap protein for the national as well. As stated investment in the sector is estimated at close to $2 billion, while 89 percent of people living in rural areas rear chickens at home.
   Bangladesh's poultry industry is reeling from the impact of bird flu, with losses now exceeding US$80 million, a preliminary report has revealed. Nearly 100,000 farms have been shut down due to recent outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 virus, leaving around 2.5 million people out of a job, reported in a recent study.
   The reports of the daily news paper and opinion of the experts indicated that impact of a potential bird flu outbreak on Bangladesh's vital poultry industry is very serious, which is still being felt. According the South Asia Enterprise Development Facility, a multi-donor facility managed by the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group (with US$810 million in total investment till mid-December 2007), the poultry sector supports five million people directly or indirectly through 150,000 poultry farms. Moreover, this figure only includes commercial farms and does not account for the more than 2 million backyard coops run by rural families, mainly women.
   Different studies revealed that in recent years the poultry industry has been growing at an annual rate of about 20 percent, recording a turnover of US$1.25 to $1.5 billion in 2006. But industry analysts estimate the 2007 figures may well have already fallen below this mark. Battered by avian flu fears, monsoon floods and a devastating cyclone this last November, the country's booming poultry industry is shrinking. "The industry is undergoing a silent form of famine," warned MM Khan, a technical adviser and spokesman for the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Association. He is also skeptical about anything good in the coming days, unless it is seriously taken care of.
   Leaders of World Poultry Science Association Bangladesh Chapter (WPSA-BC) said the latest outbreak of the bird flu virus will cause a severe loss to the farmers as it will destroy the export potentials of the poultry products. 10 million people.
   Influx of migratory birds is raising further concerns. Hundreds of thousands of Siberian water fowl arrive in Bangladesh from mid-November, taking refuge in the country's vast rivers, lakes and marshlands. "The winter months are likely to see more outbreaks. Though a permanent relationship between migratory birds and bird flu has yet to be proven beyond doubt, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), "scientists are increasingly convinced that some migratory waterfowl are now carrying the H5N1 virus in its highly pathogenic form, sometimes over long distances, and introducing the virus to poultry flocks in areas that lie along their migratory routes" - all of which worries health officials in Bangladesh.
   New areas like the southern and eastern districts of the country have reported bird flu in commercial and backyard poultry farms, raising concern amongst government officials, farmers, scientists and the general public over containing the pandemic. Over 21,000 fowls were culled in coastal Barguna district on 17 January,2008 and another 3,000 in Jessore district, southwestern Bangladesh, after detection of the virus. Fowls have been culled in Barguna since 16 January, 2008 when over 400 chickens at a poultry farm in the village of Dhalua, sadar sub-district, reportedly died after detection of the deadly virus. Barguna is one of the districts hit worst by last November's devastating Cyclone Sidr, which killed more than 3,400 people and rendered millions homeless. Local authorities have declared a one-mile no-go zone around the area and culled 20,157 chickens, 590 ducks, 515 pigeons and a parrot in the area. On 16 January, 2008 in Barisal, another southern district, the authorities culled over 1,500 birds.
   News in the media reported that a significant outbreak of the virus in West Bengal across the border in India is raising concerns among poultry farmers, especially as 17 of Bangladesh's 26 affected districts border on the Indian state. Bangladesh shares a 4,000km border with India, much of it with West Bengal, where the smuggling of poultry and eggs into protein-hungry Bangladesh is reportedly rampant.
   Proper hand-washing is a major deterrent against the virus, Field experience indicated that efforts by various international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like BRAC and Save the Children in raising awareness levels. Bird flu can spread during staggering and defeathering of birds and processing and preparation of the poultry for cooking. It is also possible that coming into contact with droppings and nasal drops of infected birds could spread the virus to human beings. According to WHO since the H5N1 out breaks started in 2003, this new health menace has so far claimed 216 lives at all over the world, including at least 95 in Asia, most of them Indonesia and Vietnam (February 6, 2008 Star)
   Despite these efforts, including seminars and meetings with rural communities over the year on obvious risk factors, levels of awareness remained "very low". In the village of Naya Para in Kahalu upazila of Bogra District in northern Bangladesh, Mahfuza Begum lost all 62 of her chickens over the past three weeks, but does not know what killed them. "I did not inform anyone about the disease. No one had told me to do so," the 42-year-old replied. "Some of the hens died while hatching their eggs. They died just sitting on their eggs," she sobbed.
   The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported recently that Bangladesh needed house-to-house surveillance to fight the spread of bird flu because the situation had worsened and was posing a danger to public health. It needs more trained personnel, more testing laboratories and more personal protective equipment to more effectively control the disease.
   There is criticism of government policy as well. Monjur Morshed Khan Treasurer of Bangladesh Poultry Owner's Association said the culling process now taking place and the way compensation was being paid to affected farmers, hinting at possible malpractices. "All the culling is done at night. The rate and process of payment of compensation are not transparent either," he said, citing allegations of manipulation in the number of culled birds and the amount of compensation given to owners. At present, the government's compensation rate for each full grown chicken is US$1 for commercial farms and $1.20 for backyard poultry.
   Risk factors: The government's technical working group on avian influenza risk, reported adding that the hot and humid environment helps pathogens spread quickly.
   As a result, communicating appropriate bio-security practices such as separating domestic flocks from wild ones, hygienic slaughtering and waste disposal, use of masks while cleaning chicken coops, disinfections before and after working in poultry farms, as well as the use of personal protective equipment is already proving difficult.

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