Feathers fly over cover-up, poultry farmers cry foul

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.