Due to lack of gov’t
funds
Poultry growers fear disaster is imminent
By Ulysses E. Israel
Poultry growers
in Bicol have expressed fears that the entry of bird flu on the
shores of the Philippines could unleash enormous social and
economic disruptions in the country.
A pall of gloom and uncertainty hangs over the future of the local
poultry industry with the arrival of avian flu on the shores of
Europe and the continuing outbreaks in Asian countries. Poultry
growers feared that the Philippines may be caught off guard if and
when the bird flu does catch up on the archipelago and that the
outcome may prove disastrous unless appropriate measures are
taken, according to Atty. Josero P. Gaite,manager and owner of
Lendes Poultry Farm, considered the biggest poultry grower in the
Bicol Region.
Expansion plans have been put on hold as poultry growers
anticipate the avian flu outbreak to hit the country anytime
between November this year and February next year, Gaite said.
“If we consider the impact of a bird flu outbreak here in our
country, in terms of its effects on human health and in economic
and gainful activities of the people, we are scared of what it
could bring about” says Gaite. “The multi-billion poultry industry
and other industries dependent on it could be wiped out, just like
that,” he added.
What worries him most, he says, is the “unpreparedness of the
people” due to lack of information vis-à-vis the “lack of action”
from the government. A massive information campaign is essential
to make the people, not only in the critical areas but the
greatest number of people become aware of what is coming to them,
he said. There is also the question of availability of funding to
mobilize warm bodies in conducting disease surveillance,
vaccination and other measures to prevent and contain the spread
of avian influenza, he said.
“What can we expect from the government?” he asked. “Our country
is poor and the meager resources available to the government may
not be adequate, as a result, prevention and contingency plans may
not be carried out as planned,” he said.
One problematic area, he pointed out, is the early detection
mechanism provided in the avian influenza protection program of
the government whereby the poultry raisers are asked to promptly
report any unusual incidence of mass deaths of chickens. This can
be best achieved if the government will provide protection for the
investments of the poultry growers, he said.
He said the government should give assurance to the poultry
growers that the latter will be given a form of compensation in
the event that the chickens are culled to contain and prevent the
spread of the bird flu outbreak. This compensation, say half of
the total value of culled chickens, will be used by the poultry
growers to recover the losses, and to finance the start of a new
poultry business, he said. The poultry growers, he said, will be
encouraged to report to authorities incidence of mass deaths of
chickens if their investments will be protected.
Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer of Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) has earlier expressed optimism that “there is
still a window of opportunity for substantially reducing the risk
of a human pandemic evolving from H5N1 by controlling the virus at
its source, in animals”.
The World Heath Organization (WHO) said that early detection and
rapid response mechanism are essential to tracking the evolution
of the H5N1 virus. (WHO) has advised governments to develop
national strategies to cope with such a public health emergency.
The WHO has also expressed that the issue of compensation for
farmers affected by culling of infected chickens should be
addressed. The Third World countries face common problems of
shortfall in funding. Developing countries like the Philippines
may not afford the compensation for the poultry growers.
In the town of Baao alone, Gaite estimates, the local poultry
farms produce about 200,000 to 250,000 eggs daily while the
population of layers is about 400,000 to 500,000 heads. The
administration of Arroyo, sad to say, has not allocated any fund
for the purpose of compensating the poultry growers should the
infected chickens be culled, he said.
Payment for the culled chickens may be sourced out from
international institutions, Gaite said.
Meanwhile, the regional director of the Department of Agriculture
(DA-Bicol) Balagtas Torres said, the DA has not come up with a
compensation scheme for poultry growers.
Torres said in an interview with the Bicol Mail that the DA has no
compensation scheme for the poultry growers and will rely on the
local folks on monitoring and reporting of possible outbreak of
avian influenza as poultry growers “could not be expected to
report such incident”.
Gaite also bewailed the absence of diagnostic facility here in
Bicol which could be crucial in times of bird flu outbreak.
As part of the action plan adopted in a recent meeting of
agriculture ministers from members of Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (Asean), eight strategic areas have been identified
for priorities, they are: disease surveillance and alert system,
vaccination, improving diagnostic capability and establishing
disease-free zones.
The absence of diagnostic facility in Bicol, Gaite said, should be
addressed by the government at the soonest time possible before it
is too late. He said big producers of eggs are found in Baao and
in other parts of Camarines Sur. His company supplies eggs to as
far as Samar in the south and as far as Lucena in the north, he
said.
