February 5, 2008

India poultry sector suffers from feed ban setback in Assam

The poultry sector of India's northeastern state, Assam, is in dire straits not because of the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus, but because it has been denied poultry feed.

In a bid to prevent the spread of bird flu, the state government has not only banned poultry imports, but also poultry feed imports.

General secretary of All Assam Poultry Farmers' Association, Rajib Sarmah, told The Assam Tribune that although the state do not have bird flu, but the existing poultry will still die due to starvation.

He added that the demand of poultry feed in the whole of northeast India is about 3,500,000 kilograms per month, with Assam producing only 10 percent of it.

Assam has only two poultry feed producing factories, situated in Tezpur and 9 Mile areas.

As a precautionary measure, birds along Assam-West Bengal borders within a 5-kilometre radius have been culled.

Sarmah urged the state government to save the poultry sector, whose situation will only go downhill if the poultry dies from starvation as locals may mistake them to have died from bird flu.

A meeting of officials from feed producing companies has made the decision to approach the chief minister to assist the troubled poultry sector.

Sarmah proposed that if the state government is unable to produce feed, it may consider testing imported feed through analysers before allowing them to enter the state's market.