Economic Impacts of Rumours of Bird Flu Outbreak from social Media on Indian Poultry Sector
Dr.Rajesh Kumar Singh, Livestock consultant,
The Indian poultry sector plays a key role in the economy with the market for its products valued at Rs 1.75 lakh crore. Its compounded annual growth has been projected at 16.2 percent between 2019 and 2024.
With COVID-19 not out of sight yet another flu outbreak has struck India. The new year began for the country with the spread of avian flu in 10 states so far, with Delhi and Maharashtra being the latest to confirm the outbreak.
Chicken prices have drastically come down in the many Indian states like Bihar and Jharkhand in the past one week as a result of the prevailing bird flu scare across the country. Although bird flu has not been officially confirmed in the twin states, the continuing deaths of chickens, crows and owls have caused panic among the general masses.
The Poultry business was slowly picking up momentum after COVID-19 outbreak but now bird flu scare has further hit them hard as only few customers are reaching them to buy chickens. Majority of the buyers are labourers, students and those who are either unaware about the bird flu deaths in the country or just want to take advantage of the falling prices of chickens.
After the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the country’s poultry industry, it is now reeling under the fresh threat of the bird flu infection. Due to the fear of bird flu, the sale of chicken and chicken products have been the worst-hit.
Especially in north India, the poultry industry has been badly affected by ban on the transportation of hens from one state to another. in the beginning of 2021, the fear of bird flu has increased so much that the demand of chickens and chicken products has decreased by more than 70%, as per the current survey from poultry farmers & Whole sellers, while prices had fallen by 50% and egg prices had also come down by nearly 15 to 20%.
The country’s poultry industry is worth nearly ₹1.25 lakh crore, which has drastically come down to half during the corona pandemic crisis. This means the business of the poultry industry which was nearly ₹1.25 lakh crore before the disaster of coronavirus has reduced to nearly ₹60,000 to 70,000 crore at present.
The central government has issued an alert to all states warning of the possibility of transmission to humans. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture has summoned officials of the animal husbandry department this afternoon over the bird flu outbreak in India.
State-wise bird deaths:-
The bird flu influenza has claimed the lives of wild, migratory and poultry birds with Haryana reporting the most number of deaths. Over 4 lakh birds have died in the state in past 10 days.
Around 4,235 migratory birds have succumbed to the H5N1 variant of the flu in Himachal Pradesh.
Rajasthan has reported 2,950 bird deaths in the state. Most of the dead birds are crows, followed by peacocks and pigeons. Over 1,100 crows and other wild birds were found dead in Madhya Pradesh.
Recently, Maharashtra reported deaths of 900 hens from bird flu in the state’s Murumba village in Parbhani district.
Delhi reported deaths of over 100 crows and 10 ducks. Samples sent for testing at a Bhopal-based lab confirmed bird flu on Monday.
Kerala, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are the other states which have seen confirmed cases of bird flu.
Can it spread to humans?
The samples were tested and found to be a case of infection caused by Influenza Type-A virus, primarily H5N1, which is considered a Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) variant.
Other strains such as H7N1, H8N1 or H5N8 also cause bird flu and belong to the same HPAI category. While bird flu outbreak in Himachal Pradesh has been caused by H5N1, the samples from Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have shown the presence of H5N8 variant.
The viral strain, H5N1 has a history of spreading over to humans from birds. Another variant H7N9 is considered very lethal to humans. However, the instances of bird flu among humans have been uncommon. The first recorded bird flu outbreak among humans was in 1996-97 in Hong Kong and China. The mortality rate has been high, however, in all human outbreaks. Six of 18 cases in Hong Kong had led to death.But in our country so far not a single case of human death has been reported till date from the Bird flu.
India has one of the highest incidences of bird flu outbreaks globally because it lies underneath three transnational flight paths of migratory birds, showing how difficult it is to prevent poultry diseases in the country.
Preventative measures:
The Central government has asked all state governments to follow the National Action Plan for Prevention, Control and Containment of Avian Influenza 2021. It has asked the state governments to take all the measures to make sure that the outbreak is curbed.
Many states are culling birds to curb the spread of the flu.
Kerala has planned to cull around 70,000 birds in the worst-affected Alappuzha district. Maharashtra’s district administration has decided to cull nearly 8,000 birds in one-kilometre radius of the village where deaths were reported.
A drive to cull ducks at Sanjay Lake in Delhi will also be carried out where 10 ducks were found dead earlier. But culling of birds is not the solution in country Ike India where more than 70 lakh people are directly or Indirectly associated with this profession.Most important thing is that the habit of Indian people to cook and eat chicken and eggs makes least vulnerable to the infection.
Economic impact of bird flu:-
The actual economic cost of the current bird flu outbreak in India is yet to be calculated as this is an ongoing situation. However, just rumours and conjectures of birds being possible COVID-19 carriers led to a loss of about $1 billion to the poultry sector in 2020.
India consumes around 30 crore eggs and 900 crore chickens sourced from poultry farms every month. The poultry sector of India is worth Rs 125000 crore, of which more than three-fourths is from the organised sector.
Around 3 crore farmers are engaged in the unorganised sector of poultry engaging in backyard bird-keeping and supplying products to aggregators.India exports processed poultry products such as egg powder, yolk powder, chicken products and also pharmaceutical ingredients from the poultry sector worth hundreds of crores every year. It is yet to be seen how this will impact the domestic and international markets.
Avian flu has significant economic impact. Poultry farmers in these states said they were counting losses from decimated farms.
The flu has a domino effect in related supply chains. When chicken prices crash, they tend to bring down maize prices too, hurting farm incomes.
Sale of chicken dropped by half in north and west India and by a third in the south even as ten states have reported an outbreak of bird flu mostly in non-poultry birds.
Chicken consumption have fallen about 70% across the country, as per the local survey.
The industry, though, is confident of recovering from the setback within 15-20 days as India has always succeeded in preventing any major outbreak of bird flu.
The Rs 85,000-crore broiler chicken industry, the Rs 40,000-crore layer (eggs) industry always suffer from the rumours from social media & News Media.Althuogh all the states and central governments have said there is no threat to humans, but advised precaution.
As far as it’s impact on sale is concerned the Volume sales of chicken has dropped by 30% in south India, while in the north and the western parts of the country, sales declined by 50- 60% as per Dr.Pankaj Das, CEO ,Jharkhand Women Poultry Federation.He also said that the farm gate chicken prices have dropped by 30% to Rs 70 a kg in north India while egg prices have come down by 7% to Rs 5.50 an egg in the past two days. “In retail the drop in prices may be reflected in the next few days,” he said. After suffering heavy losses during the first quarter of 2019 due to rumours that the novel coronavirus spreads through poultry, the poultry industry recovered as Indians had started eating more protein to stay healthy.
Covid-19 had put the poultry demand 80% below par due to fake news, However, the demand rebounded exponentially by about 80% in recent months and was showing further signs of improvement prior to this outbreak.
How serious is this bird flu outbreak?
The bird flu outbreak became a worry in the first week of January after many states started reporting unusual deaths of large number of birds — wild, migratory and also poultry. The samples were tested and found to be a case of infection caused by Influenza Type-A virus, primarily H5N1, which is considered a Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) variant.
Other strains such as H7N1, H8N1 or H5N8 also cause bird flu and belong to the same HPAI category. While bird flu outbreak in Himachal Pradesh has been caused by H5N1, the samples from Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have shown the presence of H5N8 variant.
Wild birds are considered the natural reservoirs of the bird flu viruses and it is typical of an outbreak to coincide with the season of arrival of migratory birds, which also take the virus to poultry. According to the early warning system of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), bird flu outbreaks were reported in several countries including Taiwan and Japan to a number of European countries and more than 48 lakh birds died or were culled in December 2020.
The farmers, however, complain that compensations do not cover for their profit that they could have earned from regular business.Some Govt.like Hariyana has fixed Rs 90 per Birds and Rs 12 per kg feed for compensation but this is very less as compared to the investment by farmers which comes approximately Rs 400 per Birds(Layers) and feed cost not less than Rs 18 per kg.
During this period, India culled more than 83 lakh birds at 225 epicentres of bird flu across the country. India has adopted a practice of building bio safety bubble around poultry farms to mitigate the chances of wild birds coming in close contact with reared birds.
About the safety concerns over eating eggs and chickens, scientists say it is safe to consume poultry products that are properly cooked .
So far, the organised poultry industry has not reported a single mortality due to bird flu. Just one laboratory in the country in Bhopal that conducts tests and that takes at least 15 days. There should be at least one laboratory per state, At the beginning of the lockdown last year, the poultry industry had faced huge losses after social media posts linked the spread of the virus with poultry birds. In view of a threat of a global outbreak of AI, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD) had prepared an action plan in 2005 which was revised in 2006, 2012, 2015 and 2021 for the guidance of state government for prevention, control and containment of avian influenza in the country,
Avian flu outbreaks in Asia and other countries as they progressively move westward are prompting the imposition of import bans on poultry products from disease-affected countries. The global market impact of these bans over the past year and a half include a progressive shortage of poultry meat supplies, escalating world poultry prices, a sharp drop in global poultry trade, and trade diversion as countries scramble to procure product from disease free countries. Restrictions on exports from Asian countries affected by AI outbreaks in recent years has contributed to a nearly 40 percent increase in international poultry prices over the period. These upward world price movements contrast dramatically with declining prices in disease-affected countries as exportable supplies moved back into domestic markets. Demand declined as consumers responded to food safety and human health concerns. In fact, consumption gains in Asia, which exceeded world averages over the past decade, slowed as consumers in recent years switched to other protein sources which, along with a culling of flocks, prompted a decline in Asian production. On international markets, export shortages due to avian influenza and higher prices led to an unprecedented decline in global poultry market.
