Date:25/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/25/stories/2008012554740500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Bird flu impacts ryots

Special Correspondent

State monitoring situation: Mandali

PHOTO: RAJU V.

Thanks to bird flu outbreak, there is drastic fall in price of eggs in Krishna district. —

VIJAYAWADA: Even as the Government initiated measures to prevent an outbreak of bird flu, poultry farmers in Krishna district are beginning to feel the pinch of the developments in upcountry cities.

Poultry farmer A. Suryanarayana said on Thursday that he was getting 60 paise less per egg since the culling of birds began in West Bengal. Reeling out the price of feed, he said he was paying Rs.1,60,000 for a ten-tonne load of soya feed that the birds consume in 20 to 25 days.

Farmers were paying Rs. 16,000 for a tonne of soya feed and Rs. 10,000 for a tonne of maize or bean feed. Poultry farming would be remunerative only if the buyers paid Rs. 1.50 an egg, but the price had slumped to 90 paise since the bird flu panic had begun, he said.

The poultry farmers were, however, not so worried about bird flue killing their livestock. Farm-hand Venkataratnam said no additional measures were being taken to protect the birds from flu. He was not aware of any vaccine for it.

Minister for Animal Husbandry Mandali Buddha Prasad told The Hindu that the Government was monitoring the situation closely. It had recently sent 7,600 samples to highly specialised laboratories in Bhopal and Bangalore for testing and all of them tested negative for virus.

Ban talk

TThe Government had also constituted 1,080 rapid response teams (40 to 50 teams per district) to deal with any eventuality. Members of the team had even been trained in dealing with an epidemic of bird flu at camps conducted at the State and district levels, he said.

he Minister said he had even spoken to his counterpart in West Bengal when poultry farmers complained to him that import of all poultry products had been banned.

The West Bengal Minister told him categorically that no such ban was announced.

Mr. Prasad said he was not worried because the poultry farms in the State were managed very well and there was no need to panic, because Andhra Pradesh does not import any poultry products.