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.
The final version of the report will soon be submitted the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, said Mashiur Rahman, the committee coordinator, who also owns the second largest poultry farm in the country.
There are some 220 million poultry birds in about 180,000 farms across the country. Five million people are directly or indirectly involved in the poultry industry, a sector which accounts for over 1.6 percent of gross domestic product.
Outbreaks of the virus have been detected in 43 of the country’s 64 districts, prompting the authorities to cull some 850,000 fowls at 277 farms - 236 of them commercial and 41 backyard coops.
Poultry sales have halved, and the retail price of chicken has fallen from $1.32 a kilo two weeks ago to around 88 US cents a kilo now.
Many restaurants have taken chicken off their menus, replacing it with various beef and vegetable items. “Consumption has fallen by about 50 percent amid bird flu panic,” said Ali Akbar Badal, general manager of Xinxian, a Chinese restaurant in Dhaka.
Chinese restaurants, popular with the urban middle class, have stopped cooking chicken corn soups or egg fried rice. At the same time, home consumption of poultry products has also dropped.
Alif Khan, owner of Omega Poultry Farm in Ghazipur, on the outskirts of Dhaka, whose 150,000 chickens were culled early this week, is in a state of near shock.
“Only three days ago we were producing 150,000 eggs every morning. The whole area used to vibrate with activity - feeding, packing of eggs, the movement of people and the clucking of birds. It’s like an abandoned graveyard now,” Khan said.
With a bank loan of over $2.2 million, he now wonders whether he can remain open. “Suddenly everything has changed. We are not earning anything. It’s like a shipwreck,“ he said.
“Our farm has suffered a loss of $295,000 since November last year,” said Shah Habibul Haque, director of the Aftab Multipurpose Farm, one of Bangladesh’s largest poultry hatcheries.
Smaller farmers could fare even worse: Many are selling day-old chicks for as little as 11 US cents while production costs are around 32 US cents
“My sales have come down drastically,” said Delwar Hossain, owner of Janata Poultry at Kaptan Bazar, a leading wholesale poultry market in Dhaka.
“My daily sales used to be around $2,205 in January. Now they are below $350,” he said.
According to Nobendu Shekhar Das, another poultry retailer, sales at his shop had dropped by 65 percent over the last 10 days.
 Photo: Shamsuddin Ahmed/IRIN  |
| A poultry worker disposes of a dead chicken in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital |
Meanwhile, questions remain as to how the government will respond.
According to Alif Khan, under these circumstances, the only way they can survive is for the government to step in - by waiving the interest on loans until full production can be resumed, and by issuing soft loans, allowing them to reorganise the industry.
“It's a serious crisis,” said M.A. Salek, head of the poultry section at BRAC, Bangladesh’s largest non-governmental organisation (NGO).
“The government should come forward to save this sector by taking necessary steps, including providing the farmers with soft loans,” he said.
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