As bird flu ravages 13 districts of West Bengal ? and is within striking distance of capital Kolkata ? the repercussions are being felt as far away as Namakkal in Tamil Nadu. Consider this: All the eggs that are exported out of India ? about 300 containers a month, each holding 4.5 lakh eggs ? are produced at Namakkal and sent to several countries in West Asia and to France in Europe. With exports at a standstill ever since avian influenza was reported in West Bengal?s Rampurhat subdivision in Birbhum district on January 13, losses are mounting for poultry farmers in Namakkal, India?s egg basket.
But export losses are a tiny part of the story. India?s poultry industry, worth Rs 36,000 crore now and growing at 15% annually, is largely a domestic industry. For instance, Indians consume 45-50 lakh broiler chickens and 10 crore eggs daily. So, even a 20%-40% drop in sales, as is the case across the country, is shaking up the entire industry, which was just about getting back on its feet after bird flu outbreaks in Maharashtra and Manipur in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
?Poultry farmers are taking a huge hit,? says Shashi Kapur, president, Poultry Federation of India. Consider Andhra Pradesh, the largest poultry producer of India, which sells 4.5 lakh chickens and 5.5 crore eggs everyday. With sales dropping 20%, the poultry industry is losing Rs 80-100 crore a week, says Gopal Reddy, convenor, Broiler Farmers Association of Andhra Pradesh. The story is the same in Maharashtra, the third largest poultry producer in the country.
The worst hit is West Bengal of course. The state government has announced that initial losses due to the bird flu outbreak amount to Rs 150 crore but minister for animal resource development Anisur Rahaman admits that the figure could rise. And what?s not helping matters is West Bengal?s unique problem ? the high density of human population and backyard poultry (see box).
Bengal?s burden
West Bengal has a bird population of 6 crore; already 24 lakh birds have been culled, with the target being 30 lakhs. While 80% of the layer birds are raised in the backyard, 20% are organised; but 80% of its broiler population is in the organised farms and only 20% backyard poultry. Then, even in the organised sector, 90% of the farmers are small and, hence, without adequate cushion of capital and are hit hardest. During the week, West Bengal Poultry Welfare Association members did the rounds of Writers? Buildings, appealing to minister Rahaman to save 3.5 lakh people ? that?s the number the industry employs directly and indirectly ? from ruin.
The numbers speak for themselves. ?Every week the organised broiler poultry industry in West Bengal produces 42-45 lakh birds. We are losing Rs 80-100 crore per week. We were already reeling because prices of feed too had shot up recently,? says Manoranjan Nashkar, MD, Sunderban Hatcheries. The state does not produce enough to feed the population. The deficit is met from supplies from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. And yet, after the bird flu outbreak, consumption has dropped considerably. ?Most of our farmers are small entrepreneurs and will be wiped out if the government doesn?t step in. It has announced a package for backyard poultry owners, but it needs to look into the needs of the 90% in the organised sector too,? says Tapas Bandopadhyay, president of the West Bengal Poultry Welfare Association.
?A national calamity?
Bengal?s case is being fought by the Poultry Federation of India (PFI), which met Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar during the week to get across the message. Says Kapur: ?The Centre and the West Bengal government may have swung into action immediately, but there have been some hiccups, primarily because the ground position and demographics are very different from the earlier bird flu outbreaks in Navapur and Manipur.?
Both Navapur and Manipur were contained quickly and the virus didn?t spread to neighbouring areas.
In West Bengal, the affected area is much larger. There is a concentrated population of ducks and pigs, both species are carriers of the avian influenza virus but do not die from it. The density of chicken population itself is much higher.
Then, culling of chickens in the backyards is not easy; killing ducks is even more difficult. So, says Kapur, in order to have an effective culling programme, the cooperation of livestock owners is extremely important. There are reports that women and children are smuggling their birds out of the villages to sell them off. This can result in the infection travelling from one market to another.
To get the full cooperation of livestock owners, Kapur says it?s imperative that the compensation ? now villagers are getting Rs 40 per bird culled ? is increased to Rs 72 on an average. In normal times, a bird would fetch them anywhere between Rs 100 and Rs 120. ?A higher compensation will induce the livestock owners to bring their birds voluntarily for culling and not hide or smuggle out their birds as has been reported,? he points out. ?Treat it as a national calamity,? Bengal poultry farmers are urging the government.
Spread worrying
The spread of the H5N1 virus is worrying B Soundarajan, MD of the Coimbatore-based Rs 2000 crore Suguna Poultry. ?Sale of Suguna chicken has increased in the rural areas of West Bengal, but city sales are still down. What?s affecting us is the low price we are getting for our birds ? Rs 15-16 a bird ? when the cost of production is much higher.?
Egg farmers too are getting a raw deal. While the cost of production per egg is Rs 1.20 paise, sale prices have now dropped below Re 1.
Naskhar of Sunderban Hatcheries can?t understand why people are shunning all poultry products though all the 150 farms he acquires chickens from have bio-security measures. ?According to World Health Organisation (WHO) norms only a 3 km area around the affected areas needs to be cordoned off. The government should declare that the rest of the produce from other areas across the country are safe,? says Reddy of Andhra Pradesh.
What?s also making experts anxious is how the virus spread so rapidly in the first place. ?We hope no one has made the mistake Indonesia and some other countries made,? says Kapur. Indonesia, Thailand and China had to resort to 100% vaccination after the outbreak got out of hand because they were trying to suppress information in the first few weeks. There were also reports of bird flu from Bangladesh for the past 9-10 months. With the border between Bangladesh and Bengal porous, experts aren?t ruling out the entry of bird flu from across the border. ?We should have been more vigilant,? admits an officer in the state government who didn?t want to be named. For, if avian influenza spreads to nearby Jharkhand and Bihar, where too the density of human and bird population is high, it will be disastrous, not for business alone.
