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Friday, March 29, 2024

P50m to tide over poultry growers

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THE government has allotted P50 million as initial funding for a loan program which aims to help poultry raisers affected by the recent outbreak of bird flu in Pampanga, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said Monday.

Piñol told a press conference the loan program, which would be available to the affected farmers, would be on top of the compensation package earlier committed by the government.

The DA chief earlier said poultry farmers, whose chicken will be culled and eliminated, would be compensated in the amount of P80 per head, adding a total 200,000 birds—chicken, ducks, quails, pigeons and fighting roosters—would be culled and buried in the ground.

In the Senate, Senator Nancy Binay urged national and local government units, as well as poultry and gamefowl farms, to conduct and implement biosecurity measures following the  the avian flu outbreak.

“We are calling on  LGUs, and even the owners and workers of  poultry and gamefowl farms to implement  biosecurity measures and farm hygiene to stop the spread of bird flu,” Binay said.

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“This will also prevent the possible transmission of bird flu from poultry to humans,” she added.

Biosecurity measures are management practices to reduce the potential of introducing and spreading of disease-causing organisms into and between sites.

These include isolation of infected birds; sanitation and disinfection of facilities and people; and controlling traffic of people and flocks in and out of the farm.

She said backyard and gamefowl farms should be included in the implementation of biosecurity plans. “We know that the birds are in constant contact with the people in gamefowl farms and cockpit arena.”

So far,  18,685 heads have been culled. The culling is expected to be finished by Thursday. The source of the outbreak is still not determined.

DRESSED CHICKEN. Trade and Industry Undersecretary Teodoro Pascua inspects the Q Market in Quezon City Monday to see if the price and supply of dressed chicken were possibly affected by the reported bird flu, coinciding with the government announcement it has allocated  P50 million as initial funding for a loan program to help poultry raisers affected by the bird flu. Manny Palmero

“I have asked the Agricultural Credit Policy Council to prepare a P25,000 loan assistance under the SURE loan package. Intially we are allocating P50 million under the loan program, if that will not be enough, we will source fund from other offices,” said Piñol. 

Under the program, farmers will be given a P 5,000 grant while P20,000 will be a no collateral, no interest loan payable for two years.

The government earlier confirmed cases of Avian Influenza subtype H5 in San Luis, Pampanga. 

The government has put up 1-kilometer quarantine zone and 7-kilometer control zone for surveillance. It has also established 12 quarantine checkpoints to check the incoming and outgoing vehicles moving livestock and poultry and to limit animal movements within the area.

Bureau of Animal Industry will also send samples to the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, a World Organization for Animal Health Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza for further testing.

BAI Animal Disease Control Section Dr. Arlene V. Vytiaco said while the strain identified in Pampanga was not transferrable to human, there was still a need to identify the N subtype. 

“We already identified the H5 subtype so we have to know the N subtype. We need to do this because in avian influenza, we should identify the H and N. Definitely the one in Pampanga is already negative for N1. We’ll send samples to Australia for genetic sequencing to complete the details about the virus,” said Vytiaco.

The results of the testing will be released after two weeks.

Piñol said he also directed the BAI to create a biosecurity team that would inspect all poultry and livestock farms in the country to determine if they were following biosecurity measures.

“That is SOP, that there should be food buff. They should have truck tire buff or they spray the tires of the truck. I will ask the BAI to impose this in all farms not only in Central Luzon. If you have a poultry farm, you should also include biosecurity because you are dealing with human food here. This order takes effect immediately,” said Piñol.

Meanwhile, Environment Undersecretary for Planning, Policy and International Affairs Jonas Leones said the DENR also suspended the issuance of permit or transport of any wild bird species from Pampanga and nearby provinces to prevent the further spread of bird flu.

The regional offices were also ordered to “strengthen enforcement measures, including strict surveillance in checkpoints, airports and seaports.”

They were also “enjoined to undertake regular monitoring of migratory bird sites to detect any incidence of wild bird die-offs.”

Should they encounter dead wild birds, DENR field personnel were advised to immediately hand them over to the nearest DA regional office for the “collection and analysis of samples to detect avian flu.”

The samples will be added to those that will be sent by BAI to the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, which is a reference laboratory certified the World Organization for Animal Health, an intergovernmental organization responsible for improving animal health worldwide.

The DENR also urged its regional offices to conduct awareness and education campaign to protect the migratory birds and their habitats.

As soon as the news of the outbreak came out, the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau immediately cautioned the public against approaching migratory birds.

“We discourage the killing or poaching of migratory birds because this could only worsen the situation,” BMB director Theresa Mundita Lim said.

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