Feathers fly over cover-up, poultry farmers cry foul
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Bogor
The government has been strongly criticized for being too slow in containing the outbreak of bird flu or avian influenza, putting at risk the country's poultry industry which employs some 2.5 million workers.
Chairman of the Indonesian Poultry Breeders Association, Anton J. Supit, told The Jakarta Post on Monday that the government should have announced the outbreak earlier and granted immediate licenses to local companies to produce or to import bird flu vaccine.
"The government is slow in handling the problem and is giving opportunities for the virus to spread to other areas in the archipelago. We have been asking for the vaccine since September," said Anton.
He explained that due to the restriction, several poultry farmers had decided to illegally import the vaccine.
According to Anton, the country's poultry industry was worth around Rp 50 trillion (US$5.95 billion).
Local companies are not allowed to produce or import bird flu vaccine without a prior consent from the government.
Before confirming the bird flu outbreak on Sunday (after months of evading the issue), the government had already granted a license two weeks ago to PT Vaksindo Satwa Nusantara, PT Medion and the Central Agency for Veterinary Drugs to produce the vaccine. The government also appointed state-owned drug company PT Biopharma as the sole importer of the vaccine.
The vaccines are expected to be available in the market in the second week of next month, at a price of around Rp 170 per dose.
Elsewhere, Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih said there were no plans for a mass cull of chickens although the disease had already killed 4.7 million layers so far, since the government had no money to fund the move.
"We will not follow the measures taken by neighboring countries to exterminate infected chickens, due to economic considerations," he said as quoted by state news agency Antara.
He explained that a mass cull would be ineffective because the disease had already spread and that such a move would drastically reduce the supply of chickens.
However, Anton slammed Bungaran's remarks and said that a mass cull should be immediately carried out at the government's expense in order to save both the industry and human life. He added that the government must provide compensation for the affected farmers.
The Ministry of Agriculture has only suggested that poultry farmers take their own initiative in eliminating infected chickens, and to improve biosecurity measures.
However, several experts believe that such measures would be ineffective as there is no monitoring whatsoever of poultry farmers who often sell infected chickens cheaply to the market instead of slaughtering of burning them in order to avoid huge losses.
Meanwhile, in Bogor, at least 19 poultry businesses went bankrupt when the disease first infected thousands of layers in December last year.
"All the layers in this poultry farm and the neighboring areas fell sick suddenly and died of an unusual disease," said Marzuki, a worker from Nirwana poultry farm.
Fahrul Rozi, a poultry farmer with Wong Inyong Firm in Bogor, said that he lost 35,000 layers in December and was informed by the Veterinarian Research Agency at the Ministry of Agriculture that they were infected by a combination of Newcastle Disease and bird flu.
"I am upset with the Ministry of Agriculture for not warning us about bird flu nor assisting us in preventing it," said Fahrul.
Although the Jakarta Composite Index was slightly up by 0.99 points to 785.88 from 786.87 on Friday, shares in several poultry companies such as Thailand-based PT Charoen Pokphand, PT Sierad Produce and PT Japfa Comfeed Indonesia were down following the revelation of the bird flu outbreak in the country.
Charoen shares dropped by Rp 20 to Rp 305, Sierad by Rp 5 to Rp 40 and Japfa by Rp 15 to Rp 255.