Farms at bird flu peril

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The country’s poultry industry continues to be in grave peril with sales already halved due to panic among consumers in the wake of recent bird flu outbreaks, operators said.

Many restaurants have already taken chicken off their menus while home consumption too has slumped.

“We are going broke. We are pushing our chicks at a token price to poultry farmers to minimise our losses,” said Shah Habibul Haque, director of Aftab Bahumukhi Farm Ltd.

One of the biggest poultry hatcheries, the farm claims it has incurred on average a loss of Tk 2 crore every month since November last year.

“Condition of small farmers is even more miserable. They are losing their capital,” he said adding that currently they charge only Tk 7-8 for a day-old chick, about one third of production cost at Tk 22.

The bird flu or avian influenza, which broke out in Bangladesh early last year, has now reached epidemic proportions sweeping across the poultry industry that accounts for over 1.6 percent of GDP.

According to official data, the government has detected presence of bird flu in 152 farms in 43 districts and culled 6.42 lakh birds as of February 16.

Industry operators report a loss of nearly Tk 5,000 crore because of plummeting sales coupled with a steady rise in the prices of poultry feeds, all against the backdrop of bird flu panic.

“At a rough estimate, we have made a loss of nearly Tk 5,000 crore,” said Moshiur Rahman,

convener of Poultry Industries Co-ordination Committee.

Operators said thousands of farms have been forced to shut down in a year due to bird flu outbreaks and hike in prices of feed ingredients.

Around half a crore people are directly or indirectly employed in the industry having 1.5 lakh farms.

“My sales have come down drastically,” said Delwar Hossain, owner of Janata Poultry at the Kaptan Bazar, one of the biggest wholesale and retail markets for poultry products in the capital.

He said daily sales in his wholesale store hovered around Tk 1.50 lakh in January. “Now I struggle to have sales of Tk 25,000 a day,” he said.

Showing his sales register, Khokon Mia, a poultry retailer at Kaptan Bazar, said the sales at his shop have dropped 58 percent on point to point basis.

In retail outlets, chickens sell at Tk 65-70 a kg whereas only a month ago it was Tk 80-85.

“I sold Tk 67,300 worth of poultry on January 16, but only a month later, it dropped to Tk 28,000. We are going through a terrible time. People have incredibly cut down on their poultry intake,” said Khokon who also supplies chickens and eggs to a number of city restaurants.

Outbreaks of the disease affected the chicken consumption in the city restaurants and party centres.

“The consumption has fallen by about 50 percent amid bird flu panic,” said Ali Akbar Badal, general manager of XINXIAN, a Chinese restaurant at Kalabagan.

Star Kabab’s Karwan Bazar branch Manager Mohammad Shahin also said their restaurant too has seen a sharp drop in consumption of chicken.

“It’s a serious crisis as continuing decrease in consumption push the farmers and hatcheries to huge losses,” said head of Brac Poultry MA Saleque, who believes overall consumption has been slashed by half.

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