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Bird flu scare hurts livestock growth targets
KARACHI, March 31: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP)
in its second quarterly report has highlighted the
negative effect of avian influenza virus on the
local poultry industry, saying it caused an
enormous loss of about Rs 5.4 billion to the
sector as a result the target growth of the live
stocks sub sector seems difficult to achieve.
The central bank also apprehended that the prices
of poultry products may rise in near future due to
the losses suffered by the farmers during the bird
flu crises.
The report said the virus has badly affected the
poultry industry in several Asian countries
including South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan,
Cambodia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and China.
Fortunately, Pakistan and Taiwan have struck by a
milder variant of the avian flu, caused by H7 and
H9 virus but the reports about health risks faced
by other countries severely hit Pakistan’s poultry
industry.
The report said the virus started affecting the
poultry farms in and around Karachi only during
November and December 2003, and it did not affect
Punjab and NWFP province. Punjab account for 73
percent of the total poultry business in the
country, but even then impact was visible from the
countrywide fall in demand for chicken products.
Immediately after the spread of the news on
poultry virus, by the last week of December 2003,
the demand for chicken products throughout the
country declined abruptly, causing prices to crash
from about Rs 70.00 per kg to around Rs 43.00 per
kg.
At one stage the retail prices reached a ten-year
low, which resulted into the immediate income
losses to farm owners and adversely affecting the
upstream production in hatcheries and feed
industry. According to the report there are around
300 million chicken birds in the country and more
than 20,000 poultry farms with an investment of Rs
60 billion to Rs 70 billion in this sector. It
quoted the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) that
the avian influenza caused an estimated loss of Rs
5.4 billion to the sector. “This loss when
adjusted in the value addition shows a decline of
1.3 percent in the growth of livestock
sub-sector,” it said and added this has dampened
the chances of achieving the target growth of the
livestock sub-sector, unless other contributors to
the livestock sub-sector, which account to about
90 percent of the total exceed the targeted
growth.
During January-February 2004 the sale price of
almost all poultry products remained far less than
the cost of production for many poultry farmers in
the wholesale market, the bank said.
Daily Times |
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Pakissan.com; Advisory Point
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