NEW SHEDS AND OLD DISEASES An Article By Maqsood Taj Miki

Phenomenal developments appeared on the horizon of Pakistan poultry after the traumatic “Bird Flu” period. It was a new phenomenon for our conventional and orthodox farmers. Automated poultry sheds, commonly known as controlled sheds, sprouted like mushrooms in all parts of our country in great numbers. Departure of small farmers, who were very callously eliminated by unbearable losses, paved the way for the corporate class to enter into this industry with a bang huge investment produced big automated sheds. These poultry sheds which were very expensive and high-tech, were immediate success, because lack of diseases, wonderful feed conversion ratio, incredible fast growth of broilers and extra ordinary percentage of egg production in layers, was something new and strange for our farmers. The profits in the beginning were so lucrative that many textile and other industrialists found this industry very much viable for their investment and our poultry world was swarmed by new, very forceful and financially strong entrants. It was something delectable which happened to our ailing poultry. Great investment and new technology were available to this cash starved and old styled poultry structure.

But only after a couple of years, we again started experiencing the same old snags. The trouble, not only with Pakistani farmers but the farmers in even developed countries, is that they let complacency take hold of them, and start ignoring the very important aspect of bio security. In Pakistan ignorance of bio security system is notoriously rampant. Due to this weakness we have incurred gigantic losses for so many times.

These days the meat prices of poultry meat, which incidentally is nightmarish for the consumers, is not due to the increased demand, but actually is due to Newcastle disease, which is wreaking havoc, not only in open houses but also in controlled sheds. Almost forty percent farms are being jolted by this disease. Right now, and there is no respite in sight. The old farmers, who own open sheds, are quite familiar with this kind of adverse situation but for controlled shed owners, this is nasty. They are in this morass of despair due to their own follies, this new type of farming is quite high-tech and naturally high-tech methods have to be applied to eradicate this virus and keep it away in future. We should keep in mind that livestock flourishes in disease free environment and for this, we have to be vigilant and alert all the time. A few seminars have to be held on bio security, experts from all over the world should be invited to educate our farmers, who seem to be quite oblivious to very important aspect of hygiene. We have to keep this in mind that this time around, huge investments are at stake and we should try our best to save this great investment.