The Department of Agriculture (DA) has allotted an initial budget of P50 million to assist farmers affected by the bird flu outbreak in Pampanga.

DA Secretary Manny Piñol said a P25,000 loan assistance under the Agricultural Credit Policy Council’s Survival and Recovery Assistance Program or SURE can be immediately provided for each farmer.

The amount will include P5,000 which will come in the form of a government grant, while the P20,000 will be a no-collateral and no-interest loan, which will be payable in two years, he said.

“We will offer these to the farmers within the one-kilometer radius contained area and seven-kilometer controlled areas,” Piñol noted, adding that the loan package can be accessed by the farmers “hopefully in a week’s time.”

In addition, farmers will be compensated P80 per head of culled poultry animal.

Piñol said this translates to a total of P16 million for the 200,000 chicken, ducks, quails, pigeons, and fighting roosters to be culled.

He pointed out that San Luis is producing 99,000 of broiler chickens, which is 18 percent of the production in the entire Pampanga province.

About 4.5 million is produced by the whole province, which is only seven percent of the total national production, Piñol said.

“It will have impact. Seven percent is seven percent. But it is not that much because we can easily cover this up by asking poultry growers outside Central Luzon to grow more,” he explained.

LAYER HEADS

Meanwhile, the production of layer heads in San Luis is about 116,000 or three percent of the total population of layers in Pampanga. The whole Pampanga province has 4,277,648 layers or 12 percent of the total national population of layers.

For ducks, San Luis has 134,940 or 15 percent of the total number of ducks in Pampanga, which is 897,955 ducks. This is eight percent of the national population of ducks, which is 10,843,290 ducks.

“It will have impact but I am optimistic that we can come up with supplemental measures,” he said.

18,685 HEADS CULLED

According to Dr. Arlyn Vytiaco, national avian influenza focal person of the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), the disease control teams have so far culled 18,685 heads to prevent the further spread of bird flu.

Vytiaco said the culling operations, which was earlier targeted to be finished yesterday, August 14, was a bit delayed due to problems in manpower.

However, BAI is hopeful that it will be able to finish the culling of remaining fowls by Wednesday, Aug. 16, or Thursday, Aug. 17.

NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS

Piñol said there is no scientific basis yet to be certain that migratory birds brought the avian flu virus to the country.

DA is also looking into smuggling of duck and chicken that could possibly have caused the outbreak.

Likewise, BAI assured that the country only imports chickens from bird flu-free countries.

BAI is currently awaiting the results of the samples sent to the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, a World Organization for Animal Health Reference Laboratory for avian influenza.

NOT TRANSMISSIBLE TO HUMANS

Vytiaco, however, assured that the kind of avian influenza virus strain present in the country is not transmissible to humans.

Piñol said it is safe to eat chicken and eggs this is the best time to buy chicken due to lower prices.

He reiterated, however, that shipment of fowls from Luzon to other parts of the country is still not allowed to contain the bird flu outbreak.

CONSUMER SAFETY

Meanwhile, the government has vowed to ensure the safety of consumers and support the local poultry industry in the wake of the avian flu outbreak that hit Pampanga province.

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said the government is committed to take precautions to prevent the spread of avian flu and eliminate the problem “soonest.”

“Our first concern is the safety of our consumers and citizens,” Abella said in a Palace news conference.

“So far, there is no indication that this strain of avian flu is harmful to humans but we will continue to validate this and take all precautions needed,” he said.

He said government’s long-term concern was to sustain and support the local poultry industry to weather this “first-time crisis.”

“We will work closely with them to eliminate this problem soonest and to restore our country’s chicken exports to their premium position in international markets,” he said.

The Palace earlier said the government is closely watching the quality and the price of poultry products in the markets following the culling of chickens in affected farms in Pampanga.

Abella assured the public there must be “no price increase in chicken meat” since the incident was isolated and has been contained. (With reports from Madelaine B. Miraflor, Genalyn Kabiling)

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by Ellalyn De Vera-Ruiz

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