May 7, 2009

                            

 

Egg shipments from Namakkal zone in India for 2008-09 fell by 10.15 percent following the outbreak of bird flu in northeast India, prompting countries to ban Indian poultry and poultry product imports.

 

To facilitate export of eggs from non-affected regions, the farmers in Namakkal have called for compartmentalization of farms or separate zoning of each state.

 

Namakkal region, which is the poultry hub of India, has exported 10,896 lakh eggs for 2008-09 against 12,228 lakh eggs in the previous year, according to the National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC).

 

The region, which accounts for 90 percent of the total egg exports from the country, is said to have greatly suffered due to the ban on imports in the Middle East despite not having any bird flu occurrence. K S Ponnuswamy, proprietor of KSP Feeds, Namakkal is thousands of kilometres from Tripura, the place where bird flu started and yet the region was severely affected as Middle East countries have treated the country as one zone.

 

The country has been facing a downturn in exports since February 2006 when the first bird flu outbreak was reported in India. However, the incident also opened doors for egg exports to Afghanistan and Africa.

In 2007-08, India's egg exports doubled when the ban was lifted but significantly dropped again when the disease hit in November 2008, few days after the country declared itself bird flu free.

 

VKS Sivakumar MD of VKS Exports said India's egg exports to the Middle East were again marred by bird flu in November 11 after the country announced it has been bird flu free on November 4. His company holds a 70 percent market share in egg exports from India.

 

P Valsan, secretary of All India Poultry Products Exporters Association said with newer markets, India's egg exports could have grown three-fold.

 

He said however that the government should take proper steps by bringing the whole industry under single window system and establish a Poultry Development Board to achieve it.

 

Dr A T Venugopal, who is a technical consultant for poultry farmers in India, said the state government should implement a Notifiable Avian Influenza (NAI) free establishment within Highly Pathogenic Notifiable Avian Influenza (HPNA) free compartment as per terrestial Animal Health Code of OIE, 2008.

 

International trade, according to Dr Venugopal, is governed by WTO SPS agreement and OIE (World Organisation of Animal Health) and the guiding source for export-import risk analysis as per the International code. Export from NAI establishment within HPNA free compartment is 100 percent safe and free from risk, he added.

 

The Tamil Nadu Poultry Farmers Association president R Nallathambi said the government should facilitate implementation of International norms so that exports to Gulf countries can be revived. The zone has nearly 1200 layer-egg producing farmers and around 2.35 crore eggs are produced every day.