Poorest forgotten in bird flu compensation pay-outs

For months residents of Birnin Yero, a small village of mud walls and a mix of corrugated iron and thatch roofs in northern Nigeria, had watched their chickens die in unprecedented numbers. But they simply assumed it was a bad case of the seasonal chicken plague. It was only when Africa’s first cases of the deadly H5N1 virus was confirmed weeks later in poultry at nearby Sambawa Farms (owned by Sports Minister Samailla Sambawa) in Jaji did they suspect their birds may have succumbed to bird flu, too. But as Nigeria begins compensating farmers for losses to bird flu, the villagers of Birnin Yero, like their counterparts across Nigerian states hit by the H5N1 virus, have been left out. Only the big commercial farms like Sambawa, where government veterinary teams conducted the culling of birds, are receiving compensation. The small-scale poultry keepers, who raise their chickens in their backyards and who keep more than 60 percent of all poultry in Africa’s most populous country, will not receive a cent. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), large commercial farms account for only 25 percent of Nigeria's 140 million poultry, and semi-commercial farms another 15 percent. Yet compensating farmers for the loss of their birds is a key strategy for combating the spread of bird flu, said Joseph Domenech, FAO's chief veterinary officer. “Without financial incentives, people will probably continue to hide outbreaks and sell infected poultry,” Domenech said. The international humanitarian group Action Aid has warned that current efforts to combat bird flu in poor countries seem to be ignoring the poor, and by so doing are increasing the chances that H5N1 could jump to humans and trigger a deadly pandemic. “The poorest are currently at the bottom of the list as far as global preparations are concerned, said PV Unnikrishnan, Action Aid’s emergencies adviser. “Not only is this unjust, it is also foolish.” After bird flu was confirmed in Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government ordered the extermination of birds within a three-kilometre radius of the point of discovery. Compensation was set at 250 naira (US $1.90) for each chicken, a sum considered paltry by most farmers. While government veterinary teams visited large commercial farms afflicted by the virus to implement the official control measures, none visited villagers and small-scale farmers. “We hear that the disease affecting the chickens can also kill people,” said Abdullahi Musa, a Birnin Yero resident. “But the health officials only stopped at the big farm and have not come to check us or our chickens.” Musa said most villagers are refusing to kill their chickens, even the sick ones, in the hope that health officials will visit. When the birds die, he said, the villagers usually eat them so as not to have lost everything. The Nigerian agriculture ministry has defended its efforts, including the current compensation policy. “If the stamping out of birds was done by the government and proper record was taken of the birds killed, we pay compensation,” said Winnie Emeka-Okolie, spokeswoman for the agriculture ministry. “Otherwise people who have 10 birds will come up and claim they have 50 and it will be unsustainable.” Emeka-Okolie admits that the government teams do not have the means to cover all the farms and villages where bird flu outbreaks are currently suspected. However, an awareness campaign launched by the government is encouraging people to report suspected cases of bird flu so that veterinary and health teams could be dispatched to kill the birds and take records. “If you have signs of bird flu you are expected to report to the government; we will take an audit and pay,” she said. However, an assessment team deployed by FAO to help Nigeria tackle the spread of avian flu said resources were inadequate to deal with the scope of the problem at hand. Government departments in charge of the anti-bird flu effort often lacked basic equipment for the job such as the prescribed protective clothing, transportation and even a means of efficiently killing the birds, said Demola Majasan, a member an FAO team in northern Nigeria. And as the virus spreads to the south of the country, the economic toll rises. New cases of bird flu, suspected to be the H5N1 strain, have been confirmed in two southern states, Anambra and Rivers, in addition to Benue in central Nigeria, information minister Frank Nweke announced on Tuesday. Further diagnostic tests are being conducted in Italy, he said. Many farmers fear they may not be able to recover from the economic losses brought about by the spread of bird flu. Poultry farmer Abbas Karofi, based in northern Kano - so far the worst-hit by the virus in Nigeria - said he lost 2,478 birds before the disease H5N1 was confirmed. “I was only compensated for about 240 birds that were killed by officials,” said Karofi. “I was not given anything for the birds I lost before they arrived.” Nweke acknowledges the inadequacy of the compensation measures, but says government is doing the best it can. “The president understands the socio-economic implications of the disease,” information minister Nweke told reporters as the payments got underway. “The offer cannot pay for their loss, it is just meant to cushion the effects of the (bird flu) outbreak.”