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Getting ready for WTO
Vishal Gupta
(Editor Poultry Times of India)
The efficiency and openness of our poultry disease diagnostic efforts
may be hurting our ability to retain some of our export markets. It
appears that some of the importers of our poultry products may be taking
advantage of our candor when we report diseases that are not required to
be reported. We have even lost markets because a laboratory isolated a
low path avian influenza virus from a backyard or live bird market
related flock. Some of our states have imposed restrictions and testing
requirements on the movement of live poultry through their state because
of an isolated occurrence of a low path avian influenza somewhere in the
source state. The movements of breeder chicks and poults destined to
international airports have been severely impacted by such actions.
With WTO regime the export-import hurdles so long imposed have been
vanished and the flow of poultry products to the third world i.e.,
underdeveloped or developing countries which are the new market
feasibilities for the developed countries have posed a menace to the
poultry people of the developing countries. Each and every country will
try to push their products (mostly surplus and sometimes unwanted by
their own people) to the neighbouring countries. The imported countries
on the other hand, will try to resist the competitors apprehending a
down market due to the over flow of foreign poultry products at a
cheaper price.
In this scenario it would be a shame to have come so far with our
diagnostic and control efforts which have enabled the industry to put
many costly diseases aside, and then retreat to a ?head in the sand?
mentality, not looking for diseases just to avoid the unjustified use of
any positive result in trade embargoes. Some of the improper uses of
reported diseases as embargo or transportation restriction
justifications may undoubtedly be the result of a lack of understanding
about many diseases and how they are transmitted. Embargoes also could
be due to the importing country actually believing they are free of a
disease when in fact, no one may have looked or if they did, only in a
cursory manner.
International trade can be very beneficial to buyers and sellers alike
but it will be unfortunate if, to protect an export market, we have to
back off our advanced systems of disease detection and control. Some
trade experts will tell you that there are rules in place to prevent the
misuse of diseases in the implementation of embargoes but recent events
indicate otherwise. Hopefully, wisdom and fairness will prevail so that
we can continue to pursue the detection and control of poultry diseases
with all the energy we can muster. To do otherwise could be a short-term
gain but would likely be a long-term loss. May we be wise enough and
strong enough to stay on the right road. ...
Views presented
here are of those of the writer and Pakissan.com is not liable
them.
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