Asian poultry industry faces wrenching change from bird flu
Asian poultry industry faces wrenching change from bird flu
Richard Ingham, Agence France-Presse/Geneva
The Asian poultry industry, which has boomed in the past decade to meet the needs of a fast-growing, wealthier population, faces dramatic change as a result of avian influenza, a study presented here on Tuesday said.
The small family farms and picturesque backyards that are the supply mainstay of ducks, geese and chickens for China and Southeast Asia will be squeezed -- and many may be eliminated -- by tougher hygiene and safety regulations against bird flu, it said.
"One consequence of restructuring will be that there are fewer small commercial producers and, eventually, fewer backyard producers," the study, written by economists at the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), said.
It was issued at a three-day international conference in Geneva on how to halt the spread of H5N1 bird flu virus, a pathogen that scientists fear could mutate into a form that could be lethal and highly contagious for humans.
"The future poultry sectors in East and Southeast Asia will contain more concentrated markets, with fewer, larger producers," the study said.
It noted that a number of countries, led by Malaysia, China and Vietnam, were already taking or contemplating steps to set up "poultry production zones" which would be the sole areas where raising fowl would be authorized.
Transport and veterinary infrastructure would be concentrated in these areas so that production and slaughtering would be more safer, more cost-efficient and more easily monitored.
"The cost of these developments, however, will include loss of livelihoods for small-scale producers who are unable to meet the conditions needed to meet the conditions needed to participate," the experts warned.
They gave the example of the cost for Vietnamese farmers if they were required to set up a bamboo night shed to protect their birds from mixing with migrating birds, which are the natural reservoir of the H5N1 virus.
The shed might cost US$50 to $75, and adding netting and fencing would cost a similar amount. Such bills, in a country where the per-capita income is $2 a day or less, mean the smallest producers could no longer afford to raise poultry for sale.
Another big area of change is the live animal market, a very common feature of Asian life, where the preference is for very fresh meat rather than processed food.
Countries might take the lead from Hong Kong, which imposed stringent conditions on managing live fowl and slaughtering them in these markets after an outbreak of H5N1 on its territory in 1997.
Around 150 million birds have been slaughtered since H5N1 erupted among Asian poultry flocks in 2003.
Direct losses were highest in Vietnam, with 44 million birds, amounting to 17.5 percent of the poultry population, and in Thailand (29 million birds, 14.5 percent), the FAO said.
In the six most affected countries -- China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam -- the contribution of the poultry sector to gross domestic product (GDP) ranges from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent.