February 19, 2004

 

 

India Poultry Industry Incur US$110 Million Loss

 

Poultry sales in India have fallen drastically for the past two weeks as a result of the bird flu scare. Indian officials estimated that the industry incurred losses of US$110 million.

 

"But now the situation is improving," said S. Bhattacharya, a government official in the animal husbandry department.

 

"This is due to the clarifications we have issued repeatedly stating that India is free of bird flu," he said.

 

The disease has killed 20 people and decimated poultry flocks in South East Asia, but has left South Asia relatively unscathed.

 

Pakistan was hit by a less serious version of the avian flu in December but Islamabad claims this has now been totally eradicated.

 

Bhattacharya, who operates a federal agriculture ministry helpline and takes queries from people in northern India on the avian flu daily, said the number of callers was dropping off.

 

"It's difficult to specify the number of calls we used to get but there has been a reduction in the numbers. The queries used to be about how to cook chicken, are eggs safe, etc.

 

"We even got calls from some foreign embassies asking whether it was alright to eat chicken."

 

According to the Poultry Federation of India (PFI), a traders' association, India produces 1.4 billion chickens a year or about 27 million a week, of which 95 percent are traded live.

 

The seven billion dollar industry provides employment to about four million people, a majority of whom are small farmers, the PFI said.

 

Despite the slump in the domestic market, Indian poultry exports to the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait had been steady, with India capturing a new market in Iraq recently, Bhattacharya said.

 

Health officials from seven South Asian nations meeting in New Delhi Monday said the region was free of bird flu and called for a blanket ban on the import of poultry products.

 

Butchers in New Delhi said locals were beginning to buy chicken again.

 

"Last week, we had zero sales but now we sell about 25 birds a day," said Mohammed Sadiq, owner of the National Meat Shop in New Delhi's Gole Market area.

 

In December, Sadiq boasted of sales of 100 birds a day, priced at 80 rupees (US$1.7) a kilogram (2.2 pounds). Now a kilogram costs between 30 rupees and 50 rupees, he said.

 

Mohammed Khalid, who owns the Mustafa Chicken shop in a south Delhi market, said, however, that supplies to restuarants, hotels and for large functions had "yet to pick up."

 

Shabbir Ahmad Khan, vice president of the PFI, said the avian flu scare had "caused losses to the tune of five billion rupees (US$110 million) in the past 15 days," across India.

 

"We don't have bird flu here but rumours and news reports have affected sales. What people don't realise is that if there was chicken flu here birds would have died," he said.

 

"Instead there are plenty of live birds in the market."