March 6, 2009
Bangladesh gov't to aid poultry industry hit by bird flu
Bangladeshi Agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury said on Thursday (Mar 5) the government would extend assistance to the country's poultry industry in its recovery from a bird flu storm.
Chowdhury said bird flu had hit the employment generating sector "like a tsunami" in the past two years, and the government would give all help it to recover losses.
She said growth of the poultry industry could play an important role in meeting the population's protein needs, adding that as cultivatable lands, ponds and rivers are decreasing daily, setting up of more poultry firms can ensure production of adequate animal proteins.
The agriculture minister urged local scientists and experts to produce vaccines, drugs and poultry feeds locally to reduce dependency on imported ones.
Fisheries and livestock minister Abdul Latif Biswas said the livestock sector contribution to GDP was 2.95 percent, of which the poultry sector alone was worth 25 percent.
Biswas said that in the last two decades the poultry industry has achieved 15 percent growth per year on an average.
