BHUBANESWAR: A month after bird flu was first detected in the state on January 8, it is feared thousands of poultry farms in the state would down shutters for ever.
"In areas where the fowls were culled, farmers are getting compensation for their damage. But those outside the 3-km radius of the three epicentres are facing a tougher time. Prices have nosedived and there is restriction on the transport of poultry. There are at least 3,000 farms that can't survive these market conditions," said Odisha Poultry Farmers Association president P K Rout on Tuesday.
"Start-up farms who had taken loans are doomed," he said.
While the price of chicken has come down to one-fourth, eggs have become cheaper by Re 1. Normally, per day business of poultry meat is worth around Rs 7 crore, with Odisha producing 36 lakh eggs every day. The sale now is estimated to be around less than Rs 3 crore a day, Rout said.
In a desperate attempt to sell meat, the farms are organizing free sale of chicken dishes in cities. "But it is difficult to restore people's faith. It will take at least a month after the last case is detected for the sale to normalize. If fresh cases pour in, the trouble will worsen," Rout said.
Animal husbandry department director Benudhar Dash said actual assessment of financial loss beyond the 3-km radius of the epicentres can't be made yet, but conceded the damage will be very high. "Many farmers may be unable to transport the products to sell," he said.
The avian flu was first detected in Keranga area of Khurda district, followed by Betanati in Mayurbhanj. It was confirmed in Bhubaneswar-based Central Poultry Development Organization (CPDO) farm on Friday.
While culling continued for the third day in Bhubaneswar, the government sent fresh samples from Angul and Jagatsinghpur districts to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL) at Bhopal. Dash said after detection of flu in the sophisticated CPDO farm inside Bhubaneswar, the government is taking no chances. "We have sent fresh samples from Jagatsinghpur and Angul. The results are awaited," he said.
Poultry industry in Odisha has an estimated turnover of Rs 2,500 crore. There are around 12,000 farms employing 70,000 people directly and over 50,000 indirectly, Rout said. Besides in-house consumption, poultry products from the state are transported to Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Angul, Bhadrak, Balasore, Ganjam, Khurda, Puri and Jagatsinghpur districts have high concentration of poultry farms.
Times of India
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