Kerala bird flu outbreak leaves Namakkal poultry farmers worried

Bird flu outbreak has been reported from two poultry farms in Kozhikode district in Kerala prompting authorities to order culling of ducks and hens within one kilometre radius of the affected areas. Culling of birds is to be taken up to prevent the spread of virus to nearby areas.

Already, the prices of broiler chicken and eggs have crashed to an all-time low as people stopped consuming chicken following rumours that novel corona infections is transmitted through its consumption.

However, poultry farmers sound confident that there is no chance for bird flu to spread over to Namakkal due to the safety protocols being followed by them.

“Poultry farms are disinfected frequently and proper hygienic methods adopted to prevent any outbreak. There are no chances for bird flu to spread due to better sanitisation practices followed by us. All vehicles entering a poultry farm were sanitised and workers adopt better hygienic practices, ” A Singaraj, president of All India Poultry Products Exporters Association, said.

Dr PV Senthil, farmer-cum-exporter and general secretary of Livestock and Agri Farmers Trade Association, said that enhanced surveillance programme is in place to prevent any outbreak of bird flu in Tamil Nadu.

“Following the last outbreak in 2016, a Rapid Action Force was constituted in each district to tackle any outbreak of zoonotic disease. Also samples are collected from poultry farms and from wild birds to ensure that there is no incidence of bird flu,” he said.

Yet, the poultry farmers agree that they are facing a tough task of rumours doing rounds in social media that corona virus transmitted through consuming chicken.

“Sale of broiler chicken has crashed following misinformation being spread in WhatsApp and Facebook that corona virus is spread to humans through consuming chicken. People have begun to avoid consuming chicken out of scare,” said V Subramaniam, vice president of Poultry Farmers Association.

Poultry farmers claimed that they were forced to sell chicken for as low as Rs 30 per kg even though its production cost comes to around Rs 80 per kg.  The procurement price of eggs too has fallen to an all time low of Rs 2.60 paise per egg while its production cost is around Rs 4.

If this situation persists for one more month, then almost 50 per cent of the poultry farms in Namakkal will become non-performing, they say.  Poultry farmers say that the industry has already met with a severe loss running up to several hundreds of crores due to corona effect.

M Kandasamy, president of the Coimbatore District Broiler Merchants Association, said that due to misleading information in social media, the price of broiler chicken has dropped to Rs 100 per kg from Rs 170 a month ago. The price of live chicken has also come down toRs 40 from Rs 90.

“We have been creating awareness among public that eating chicken has nothing to do with Corona,” he said.  

Even while fighting the corona scare, the bird flu outbreak has come as a double whammy for the poultry sector. Though Namakkal has not reported any outbreak of Avian influenza, poultry farmers continue to bear the brunt, whenever there is an outbreak in other parts of the country. It is feared that avian flu can spread to humans and can trigger person to person transmission. When it was last reported in 2016, the poultry prices dipped drastically resulting in huge loss for the poultry sector in Namakkal.