September 2, 2013
The Youth Peasants Federation of Nepal had organised a debate between poultry entrepreneurs and government officials which took place at the Department of Livestock Services (DoLS).
Talking at the programme, poultry farmers put forward their dissatisfaction with the government's work in controlling the recent bird flu outbreak. Amid strong controversies, the farmers questioned the cause of the outbreak and said that various foreign forces were behind it. They also asked for proper compensation from the government for disposing the effected chickens.
"Young people from Nepal are going abroad because of lack of opportunities in Nepal and ever since the outbreak the situation has worsened and the future of young farmers has been compromised," said chairman of Youth Peasants Federation Babu Ram Thapa. "The government should provide enough compensation for losses faced by poultry farmers," he added.
In defence, members of DoLS said that controlling any kind of large scale disaster was not an easy task, especially in a country like Nepal. They said that lack of money, resources and manpower is a big hurdle for the government to overcome this situation.
"There is a big risk to the health of people who are assigned to kill the infected birds because they do it with limited equipment provided by the government, therefore farmers should work together to overcome the problem," said deputy director of DoLS Ram Krishna Khatiwada.
"We should be careful in handling our farms by protecting it from external diseases. The government should provide safe feed to poultry farmers and prevent all farms from contracting the bird flu virus," said senior vice chairman of CPN (UML) and chairperson of All Nepal Peasants' Federation Bamdev Gautam.
So far more than 1.3 million chickens and 1.6 million eggs have been destroyed after the bird flu outbreak. The main reasons for the epidemic are said to be lack of laboratory equipment, delay in culling infected chickens, black marketing and improper transportation system.
