January 20, 2004

Thailand To Compensate Farmers With Chickens Instead Of Cash

The Thailand government will compensate the country's chicken growers with live chickens, instead of an earlier decision to offer financial reimbursements, Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchob said.

The government had dropped its previous plan to pay 40-100 baht for every dead chicken after learning the price of live chickens had skyrocketed, and the new prices would make it impossible for farmers to replace dead ones.

He announced the change to farmers from Suphan Buri, who accepted the idea.

More than one million chicken had died or been killed in the past two months. About 30,000 chickens died from fowl cholera and bronchitis, in five central provinces. About 850,000 were slaughtered to contain the outbreak.

"The ministry is buying chicken. Without the ministry, affected farmers would be unable to buy live chicken because large-scale poultry farm operators are taking advantage of the situation to increase chicken prices," said Mr Newin.

"The Livestock Department will buy live chicken from these companies and distribute them to farmers."

Poultry farmers, however, could not resume chicken raising until their farms were disinfected.

Most poultry farms ravaged by the outbreak are small layer-chicken farms, with substandard sanitary systems.

Chickens are being supplied mainly by large poultry farms, spared from the outbreak by better farm management.

Mr Newin said a special debt relief programme would be launched to help poultry farmers recover.

Chalerm Pinsakul, a farmer from Suphan Buri who lost his 10,000 chickens after the "mystery disease" spread to his farm in December, said live chicken was a better option.

"With the price of live chickens rising, it would be impossible for us to buy chicken on our own," he said. However, many farmers were suspicious about the cause of the massive deaths. "The government claims it's fowl cholera and respiratory syndrome, but we've experienced those diseases before."