Poultry policy on cards
The government is to announce a poultry policy aimed at ensuring a hygienic, well-managed and sustainable industry. "We are framing the policy to enable the industry grow under regulations. It's at a final stage. We are hopeful to make the policy effective from the next month,' said Sunil Chandra Ghosh, director general of Department of Livestock Services. Earlier, a committee comprising representatives from private sector and the government framed a draft policy. The draft of the policy titled 'National Poultry Development Policy, which focused mainly on commercial poultry farming, is going to be announced after about seven years. The initiative to formulate the policy was taken in 2001. Under the policy, commercial poultry farms will be required to get registrations. The farms must not be set up in densely populated areas. The draft policy has also fixed the minimum distance between two commercial farms. Moreover, no commercial farm can be set up within two kilometers of grand parent stock and parent stock producing farms. The farms must ensure hygiene, the draft policy said. To assess the demand and supply for day old chicks in local market, the government will develop a database by receiving production related information from the public and private breeding farms and hatcheries. Moshiur Rahman, convener of Bangladesh Poultry Industries Co-ordination Committee, said the database will remove the inconsistency in production of poultry chicks. "In absence of any production and supply related data, sometimes production surpasses the demand while sometimes poor supply push the prices of day-old chicks up due to supply crunch,' he said. The government is going to finalise the policy when the country's Tk 8,000 crore poultry industry is struggling to survive in the aftermath of bird flu that led to closure of thousands of farms. Operators hoped the policy will help put an end to the trend of setting up of poultry farms indiscriminately. According to the policy, a Livestock and Poultry Quality Assurance Institute will be established. sohel@thedailystar.net