August 30, 2010

Thousand poultry farms destroyed in Pakistan city

Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) local chapter said Thursday (Aug 26) that the devastating flood had demolished 1,000 poultry farms in Pakistan's Dera Ghazi Khan.

Due to killing of over two million birds during the devastating flood, the supply of chicken meat and eggs has been suspended to Sindh, Balochistan and Afghanistan.

PPA said that the devastating flood had dismantled network of extensive poultry farms in Dera Ghazi Khan, particularly in Kot Addu tehsil, Muzaffargarh where the poultry feed distributors and farmers faced an immense loss of over Rs 800 million (US$9.35 million). This had left 10,000 families jobless, while 1.2 million birds were killed in Muzaffargarh alone.

The office-bearers of PPA, including Dr Ziaul Rehman Bhatti, Muhammad Safdar Pitafi, Malik Muhammad Ijaz and Haji Ijaz Gurmani, said that farmers could not shift their birds to safer places due to a breach in the left bank of the River Indus near Taunsa Barrage. They said that they could only shift their families while poultry farms were totally destroyed. They added that the most affected areas were Sinawan, Gurmani, Sheikh Umar, Mehmood Kot, Qasba Gujrat, Qasba Ghazi Ghat, Dera Din Panah and Chakar Dari.

They claimed that the number of birds flooded away in Muzafargarh was the highest with a figure of 1.5 million, including 1.2 million in Kot Addu tehsil, 300,000 million in Muzafargarh, 200,000 in Dera Ghazi Khan and 300,000 in Rajanpur and Layyah districts.