Slaughter-team resumes culling poultry in bird flu ‘contaminated areas’

 

CHITWAN: With the farmer’s protest coming to an end, a technical team deployed to slaughter fowls in the regions which were declared bird-flu-contaminated has resumed operations.

In response to the outbreak of severe avian influenza, a cabinet meeting on Thursday had taken the decision to kill domestic birds in the region.

A team dispatched from Kathmandu and District Livestock Office had reached Khairahni Municipality-9 after bird flu was detected in two poultry farms.

Although 2,500 hens were killed by the virus in two farms and 4,500 hens were culled by the authorities after cabinet’s decision, till Saturday morning, farmers had stopped the team protesting against the declaration of contamination zone.

The farm owners and others said that the team was biased while setting the perimeter of contamination zone. Moreover, farmers accused the team of culling out poultry in small farms leaving out the bigger ones.

According to Vice Chair of Nepal Egg Producers Association, Raghu Nath Bhatta, the aggrieved farmers said that the technical team has unfairly set the perimeter stretching out to 3 Kilo Metres in one direction and only 200 Metres on another.

“Moreover, the problem rooted as farmers were not involved while fixing the contamination periphery," Bhatta added, “A resolution was made through talks between farmers, technical team and authorities.”

In instances of government’s decision to cull the poultry, the provisions ensure 75 per cent compensation of the total estimated value of culled-poultry to the farm owners.

According to the entrepreneurs, total investment in the poultry sector is more than Rs 70 Billion and half of the total investment has been channeled in Chitwan district.

 

READ ALSO:

Severe H5N1 bird flu reported in Chitwan