100,000 jobs, FCFA 150 bln lost to bird flu– ACDIC

The Executive Secretary of the Citizens Association for the Defence of Collective Interest, better known by its French acronym as ACDIC, Yvonne Takang, has said the impact of the bird flu crisis in Cameroon is building up as a huge disaster on the National Economy.

In the following interview with The Post, she reveals that the West Region alone has lost some 100,000 jobs and over FCFA 150 billion since the crisis erupted.
Read on:

The Post: You are heading an organisation that has been particularly keen on protecting poultry farmers. What was your first reaction when you learnt about the outbreak of the bird flu some 15 days ago?

Yvonne Takang: When I got the message, the first thing I said to myself was ‘not again’ because, if you remember, in 2006, there was this rumour of an outbreak in the North Region of Cameroon and the consequences were very disastrous to the national economy.

Close to FCFA 4 billion was lost. And now, with the issue coming from Mvog-Betsi itself, where we think it is exemplary in terms of poultry farming, I said this could be very serious after gathering information that out of the 33,000 fowls they had, 15,000 died and the remaining 18,000 were destroyed. So, the following day, we started investigating to understand what had happened and it was real that the crisis is here.

What actually happened?

They said that a few days earlier, they discovered some chicken dead but they couldn’t consider it serious. It’s normal because chicken, of course, could die, so they didn’t think of bird flu immediately. But as soon as they found out that 15,000 chicken had died at a go, they started considering that it was a serious case. That’s how we got the information from the Minister himself that they were trying to hide the first cases and so, that’s how we found out that it was really an issue.

Who was trying to hide it?

The Complexe Avicole Mvog-Betsi was trying to hide the first cases. So, it is the Minister himself who gave us this information.

What is your appreciation of the measures the Government took immediately to avert the impact of the bird flu?

I wish to acknowledge and applaud Dr. Taïga, the Minister of Livestock, maybe because he is a Veterinary Doctor that he managed the situation better than in 2006.

In 2006, it was catastrophic because of poor management. But, right now, not only have they installed a laboratory to run tests and analyses to see immediately what killed the birds, but he took upon himself to give appropriate information to the journalists the very next day. So, I should applaud, first of all, the fact that he has been doing a very great job in the management of this bird flu crisis and, at the same time, the measures that he took, that is; to stop the movement of birds, stop the sales and everything.

You would be surprised, but it’s something that had to be done in order to stop the spread of the virus. So, we are recommending and asking all the poultry farmers that if they identify any case(s), they should call on a veterinary doctor immediately to come and run some tests, rather than trying to hide it. I know they should be asking the question on what they are supposed to do.

If we had, say 1,000 birds and two 2 die, the next thing is that the authorities will come and then kill the rest. The only measure we are as well recommending is for the Government to reassure poultry farmers that after we’ve gone through all this, they will be compensated. That’s a measure that has not yet been taken officially.

What is your evaluation of the economic impact of the bird flu crisis?

Before I go into the question, I would love to emphasise that consumers or the population should understand that they can consume their chicken and other chicken products without fear, because, in our eating habits, we usually cook our meat very well. It has been revealed that when the chicken is well cooked and the eggs are well boiled, then, you can consume them without fear of being infected.

The one thing they should also understand is that, when you directly manipulate and handle the infected bird; that is when you can get the virus. And most of the people who run the risk of infection are poultry farmers and this transmission is not done from human to human, but from bird to human and the humans we are talking about here are the poultry farmers very often.
On the economic impact, West Region, we should note, is the biggest production area in the country.

And so, the fact that the sale of poultry products was banned in Yaounde which is a big market for the West is a problem.

And we are talking about some 100,000 jobs in the sector being affected, especially in the West Region. Note that the chain of actors in the poultry sectors (farmers, feed producers, hatcheries, transporters, among others) represents FCFA 150 billion on the national economy only for the West Region which is the largest production area with over 80 percent of national production and 60 percent in the Central African sub region.

Also, the West Region consumes 500,000 tons of maize each year to the value of FCFA 110 billion. Also note that one day of ban of the movement and sale of poultry products represents loss of FCFA 1.1billion to the national economy.

Your advice is for people to cook the meat well, whereas the sale of chicken has been banned, where will the chicken come from?

We are trying to work with the Ministry of Livestock in order to open up a safe market because about 500,000 chicks have been identified as safe right now. So, they are planning to open up a safe market in order to sell the unaffected chickens.

How many areas in Cameroon do you think have been affected?

Actually we talk about divisions. So, there are four divisions that have been affected. We are calling on the unaffected areas to continue selling their chicks because only four divisions have been declared affected and have been warned not to move around with their poultry products. These divisions are Mifi, Koung-Khi in the West Region, Mvila in the South Region, and Mfoundi in the Centre Region.