Rising Heat Making Nigerian Chicken Breeders Sweat

In the wake of a severe heatwave, popular Nigerian television host Ebuka Obi-Uchendu laments on Twitter that the brand of eggs he eats is missing from grocery shelves. On further inquiry, he is told that the suppliers of those eggs lost 5,000 of their chickens to sweltering weather - a problem that is a source of complaint among many Nigerians today.

The World Meteorological Organization predicts that 2019 will be among the globe's hottest years on record. And Nigerian farmers - such as the poultry producers who provide Obi-Uchendu's eggs - are among those feeling the heat.

In Zaria in northern Nigeria, where recent temperatures have spiked to 36C, farmer Olusola John says the severe heat has been affecting his 600 chickens. "I lost some of my birds to it," he sighs. "My colleague sold off her birds because she couldn't cope with the stress."

John dreams of building a modern-style chicken house that could minimise his heat-related losses. But such a structure could cost as much as 19 million naira ($55,000) - more than the profits that he could recoup by selling his chickens.

Bamidele Oyeyiola ... has been in the poultry business for 15 years, and like the average Nigerian farmer, he relies on the local ecosystem to sustain him. Ironically, the recent heat has turned that very ecosystem into his biggest threat.

The farm where Oyeyiola rears 3,000 breeder-broilers - which cost 6,120 naira ($17) per chicken to produce, and which are among the most expensive chickens to raise - is a large open space with two big poultry houses, a water tank, a generator and living quarters that house six farmhands. "The cost of feeding is high, the cost of drugs is high and the cost of management is also very high," Oyeyiola says.

To create ventilation and airflow in high temperatures, Oyeyiola has built poultry houses that stand 13 feet high, face the wind, and are surrounded by trees. Constructing them cost 3.6 million naira ($10,000.)

Before Oyeyiola's hens can even start laying eggs, he feeds them for one year and four months and offers them round-the-clock surveillance. While they mature, Bamidele makes no sales. And during this time, some hens die - often due to extreme heat.

One of Oyeyiola's farmhands carries a pail of water to fill the troughs for the chickens, making more than five trips to the tap and back.

When the heat is unbearable for the chickens, Oyeyiola and his workers put ice blocks in the birds' water. But they can not regulate humidity or the internal temperature of the open-air poultry house.

Just as the Nigerian government doesn't help Oyeyiola with his chickens' bedding - sawdust that must be kept dry and changed at least twice a day - he says the government isn't lifting a finger to help his business beat the heat.

"If there was technology, the water would come there automatically, [and] the birds would drink at their convenience and adequately," Oyeyiola says. "But if you decide to put water in a bucket and the water finishes, the bird will also suffer, and that will also affect our production."

Oyeyiola and his workers breathe a sigh of relief around 4pm, when temperatures start to cool.

In poultry and piggery production, high temperatures hinder yields because they can retard reproductive cycles and boost mortality, says Adekunle Adedoyin Idowu, a senior lecturer at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

Idowu notes that in Nigeria, mortality rates for poultry are increasing "to the level of at least 15 percent per annum".

The loss is not as severe on farms with modern technology, where yields and profits are higher. Agricultural producers who are wealthy enough to mitigate the effects of global warming can plant more productive crops and raise more poultry and livestock. This is why it is the more affluent Nigerian farmers who are now controlling the market, says Merlin Uwalaka, an environmental economist at the University of Alberta.

Olusola says he recently had to increase the number of times he gave water to his hens - and that he now performs this chore four times a day. "The weather," he tells Al Jazeera, "is not friendly to the birds."

Full article...

Trends in the South African poultry sector

According to analysis published by USDA, the South African poultry meat industry is the largest agricultural sector, contributing 18% to agricultural GDP. The South African industry accounts for 80% of poultry production in the SADC region. Poultry meat, at 32 kg per head, accounts for almost 56% of total meat consumption in South Africa, with per capita consumption having more than doubled since 1993 (+129%).

The South African poultry industry has experienced 4% growth per annum since 2000, with only a slight hiccup in 2009. The resurgence of production post 2009 was aided by a large surplus of maize, and record levels of soya production, which together considerably reduced feed costs (which fell by 10%). Production growth in 2011 is expected to slow down to only 1%. This slowdown in growth is attributed to higher feed costs and growing imports.

Broiler meat imports for 2010 rose 17% to 240,182 tonnes, with a further increase in imports to 300,000 tons expected for 2011. According to the USDA analysis, ‘broiler meat imports into South Africa are primarily exchange rate driven’, with a 15% increase in the value of the rand in 2010 driving the earlier increase in imports. Brazil accounts for 74% of imports of poultry meat into South Africa, accounting for fully 15% of domestic poultry meat consumption. USDA reports that, against this background, ‘the South African poultry industry has requested [that] anti-dumping duties against Brazil be introduced.’ The International Trade Administration Commission is currently investigating ‘the imports of Brazilian whole birds and boneless cuts’, with a preliminary ruling expected ‘in the first few months of 2012’.

The USDA report notes that the 5-year anti-dumping duty on US poultry meat portions is due to expire in November 2011, although a ‘sunset review’ is currently under way, with anti-dumping measures expected to be extended. Anti-dumping duties charged in South Africa range from R2.24/kg to R6.96/kg, on top of a standard duty of R2.2/kg.

Imports mainly consist of ‘mechanically de-boned meat’, followed by ‘frozen bone-in portions’, ‘frozen boneless portions’, ‘whole frozen chicken’ and ‘frozen offal’. The EU plays only a minor role in this trade.

Product distribution: South African broiler imports, 2010
Product Category

Total poultry imports

%
Mechanically de-boned meat 42
Frozen bone-in portions 32
Frozen boneless portions 9
Whole frozen chicken 9
Frozen offal 8


The sector is dominated by two large producers (Rainbow and Astral), which together account for 46% of production (the third largest producer accounts for only 7%). A process of industry consolidation is taking place, ‘with bigger players buying up some of the smaller producers’. The poultry sector accounts for 30% of total maize consumption in South Africa.

In terms of animal health, while there are challenges, progress is being made, and lower flock mortality rates have been achieved over the past 3-4 years.

Press reports indicate meanwhile that the government of Mozambique is to exempt animal feed from VAT, in an efforts to curb rising costs in the poultry sector. Currently imported frozen chickens are around 10% cheaper than Mozambican chickens. According to press reports, competition from imports is making it very difficult for Mozambican poultry farmers to pay back bank loans, and the situation is seen as critical.

Editorial comment

With exchange rate movements, linked to non-agricultural sector economic developments, currently the main driver of South Africa’s poultry meat imports, the question arises of what implications this has for the use of traditional agricultural trade policy tools. Anti-dumping duties have been used against US exports of poultry parts, with additional duties now being contemplated for imports from Brazil. This can be seen as one means of dealing with the market disruptions arising from heightened exchange rate volatility.

While the scale of Brazilian poultry production and the cost advantages which Brazil enjoys can be seen to overshadow the South Africa poultry sector, the South Africa poultry sector casts a long shadow over poultry production elsewhere in the Southern African region, with neighbouring countries routinely seeking infant industry protection against imports from South Africa. The use of trade policy tools thus plays a dominant role in the poultry sector in Southern Africa.


Agritrade

Kenyan poultry farmers seek alternatives to maize as shortage persists

by Bob Koigi

Poultry farmers across Kenya are scaling back chicken production, driven by the soaring costs of feed made principally from maize, which is now at all-time high prices. But for some, the soaring prices have forced a search for alternative feed that scientists claim are cheaper and more nutritious for poultry, and end competition for mainstream human food.


Since the end of last year, maize prices have risen more than three-fold, triggering a 40 per cent increase in the price of chick mash, from Sh2,700 for a 70kg bag to Sh3,500.


“Chicken feed accounts for 70 per cent of the total input cost, so if the feed prices go up, the input costs will automatically increase. If a farmer cannot meet the costs, he chooses to either reduce the number of chicken he rears, or stop poultry farming altogether,” said Ms Wairimu Kariuki, the chairperson of Kenya Poultry Farmers Association.


Yet maize has long been a problematic staple for the poultry industry. The amount of maize required for human consumption in Kenya is estimated at three million tonnes. But the country produces less than that, meeting some 10 per cent of its needs through imports. This sets up competition for maize in animal feed and means Kenya is deficient in oil seed cakes and meals important as protein sources in chicken feed.


A recent report on the feed industry showed substantial importing of wheat milling by-products from Uganda to try and replace the maize supply shortfall for feed. But other initiatives are now seeking to find whole new sources of poultry feed.


At local levels, some farmers are moving to alternative feed made from traditional and more nutritious crops, such as amaranth, millet and sorghum, and even to worms as chicken feed. That change is cutting their feed costs by up to 40 per cent.


Meanwhile, researchers are looking at non-conventional sources, such as pigeon peas, leaf meals, and agricultural by-products for protein supplements. Recent research by the Department of Animal Production at the University of Nairobi on found bulrush millet to be a good replacement for maize due to its higher protein content, which could be improved further with lysine supplementation.The research also found raw pigeon peas were a suitable source of protein at levels up to 15 per cent in chicken feed rations.

Bulrush millet and pigeon peas combined were able to replace up to 40 per cent of the conventional energy and protein sources in poultry feedstuff, concluded the research. Bulrush millet, which withstands hot temperatures, is a common livestock feed among poultry farmers in the semi-arid Mbooni area of Ukambani, with farmers reporting big savings through these feed, which they only grind manually to feed to their chickens.


The same farmers are also using cassava as an alternative poultry feed. They first dry it to rid it of cyanide, which would otherwise poison the poultry.


The shift is being championed by Bridgenet, an NGO assisting farmers in poultry keeping, which has borrowed the model from European countries like Holland and UK, which import cassava from South East Asia for poultry and pig feeds.

“It is possible to change all this cry about expensive chicken feed. If you look around and see for example how much cassava is rotting in the farms due to oversupply. That cassava has been proven to be nutritious feed for chicken, and is readily available,” said Dorothy Mwende, a programme officer with Bridgenet.


Nor do the alternatives end there. Mary Gikuni, an agroproneur from Limuru ventured into farming fodder shrubs that have been known to increase milk production in cattle by 20 per cent. But she later learnt from scientists that the same fodder shrubs, known as Caliandra, are very effective in feeding chicken once they are cut into small quantities and mixed with feeds that may be low in protein.


The shrubs – which are easy to grow and mature in about 12 months after which they can be regularly pruned and fed to livestock for up to 20 years — have been shown to harden the shells of the egg and improve the quality of the egg yolk.

Business Daily Africa

Kenya: New vaccine bringing hope to poultry farmers

by Wandera Ojanji

Four years ago, Eunice Mutiso, 45, lost her entire flock of chicken, to Newcastle Disease, a highly contagious viral disease affecting birds and considered as one of the most deadly poultry diseases worldwide. It was not the first time the small-scale farmer from Kyeni Kyamanzaa in Machakos had lost her entire flock to the disease that has no cure, but it may have been the last time for her and many other indigenous poultry keepers.

Although effective vaccines are available from large pharmaceutical companies, they are rarely used by millions of poultry farmers in rural areas due to various challenges such as lack of electricity, cold storage facilities, poor infrastructure and unfavourable packages for small flocks.

Now, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) in collaboration with Kenya Veterinary Vaccine Production Institute (Kevevapi) have adopted an effective vaccine,1-2 ND against the disease.

The I-2 ND virus strain, is an avirulent Australian Newcastle Disease virus isolate from University of Queensland ,Australia, which is free of commercial ownership and is available to government vaccine production laboratories and other agencies in developing countries.

The vaccine is easy to administer through an eye-drop method using a dropper calibrated to deliver 0.1 ml dose of vaccine. Vaccination should commence 14 days to one month before an anticipated outbreak of Newcastle disease with revaccinations every three months.

According to validation studies conducted ...under field conditions in free ranging indigenous chicken the vaccine was found to offer 62 per cent protection against Newcastle Disease.

The study revealed that less than five per cent of the indigenous chicken have protective antibodies against the causative virus.

The Standard

Malian hopes to build world' s biggest ostrich farm

In Banguineda village, 35 kilometers South of Bamako, Malian entrepreneur Mamadou Coulibaly is making big money from a big bird.

Coulibaly's is keeping and breeding ostriches, the largest species of bird, which in the wild, was hunted for it's meat, feathers and tough skin and now survives around the world mostly in special farms.

Coulibaly approached a group of North Korean ostrich farmers who were breeding the birds in their country for advice on how to get started. He opened his ostrich farm in 2008 with 100 ostriches and the population has now grown to 3000 birds today, making it the biggest farm in West Africa.

"When I first started this project, I contacted a Korean company that speacialises in ostrich farming in North Korea. I made contact with them to see how they managed to develop ostrich farming," he said.

According to experts, for over a century, South Africa had a monopoly on large scale ostrich farming.

The bird had been hunted almost to extinction in 1865. South African farmers began breeding them and made fortunes in the early 1900s when ostrich feathers were in high demand by fashion designers around the world.

In 1989, South Africa banned the export of live ostrich and eggs to try and protect its market.

But ostrich eggs were smuggled out to the United States and Asia, including China and North Korea where breeding farms were established.

There, it is the meat, which many say tastes like beef, but is low in fat and cholesterol, which is most prized.

Ostriches thrive in arid and semi-desert areas, making Mali, which extends into the Sahara desert an ideal place to rare the big bird.

But catching them can be tricky. These birds aren't just the biggest - they are also the fastest, capable of speeds of up to 97 kilometers per hour.

Coulibaly is hoping to turn his farm and Mali into the next ostrich farming destination and with world-wide demand for ostrich products rising he is positioning himself to be the top supplier.

"In 2014, we'll be the world's largest because there are around 30,000 breeding ostriches in the world today and our ambition is to have 10,000 breeding ostriches by 2014," Coulibaly said.

Coulibaly says that the farm's turnover in 2010 was 1.4 million US dollars.

He is still working with North Korean experts to breed ostriches, whose eggs are stored in a high tech breeding center not far from his farm.

Kim Il Ung is the director of the breeding center.

"By 2015, we want to have at least 10,000 hens to establish a big farm. This is planned over a period of eight years and after that 100,000 ostriches will produce meat and furs here in Mali," said Kim.

Analysts say Africa has the fastest growing economy in the world after Asia, and is home to five out of seven of the swifests growing economies.

As African and world leaders gather in Cape Town, South Africa's for the World Economic Forum (WEF), job creation and Africa's economic integration in the world is expected to dominate discussion. Experts have highlighted entrepreneurship as a means to even further economic stability for the continent's populations.

Coulibaly, who is also investing in crocodile farming, is among a growing crop of African entrepreneurs who are trying to create wealth at home.

Mali's unemployment level is at 30 percent.

Mohamed Diawara, a shopkeeper at Bamako's national park, sells ostrich products from Coulibaly's farm, such as decorative eggs and handbags made out of ostrich skin.

"I am here thanks to Mr. Coulibaly. I used to work for him in Niger and when he started his ostrich and crocodile farming, I was doing leathercrafts for him at the time, he offered me to run this shop in the National park," Diawara said.

A breeding ostrich can sell for up to 5,000 US dollars and those whose feathers can be used for decoration can sell for around 3,000 US dollars.

Chickens gene-modified so as not to transmit flu

European scientists have found a way to genetically modify chickens so that they don't transmit bird flu, according to research published in the journal Science.

Bird flu, also known as H5N1 avian influenza, usually afflicts poultry but can cross over to humans and cause lethal respiratory problems and other complications.

The first cases detected in humans were in Hong Kong in 1997. A wider global outbreak took hold in 2004 and cases have flared across parts of the world ever since.

Scientists from the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh said the modified chickens could get bird flu but could not pass it on to other chickens.

"Chickens are potential bridging hosts that can enable new strains of flu to be transmitted to humans," said Laurence Tiley, of the University of Cambridge's Department of Veterinary Medicine. "Preventing virus transmission in chickens should reduce the economic impact of the disease and reduce the risk posed to people exposed to the infected birds."

However, Tiley noted that the research still in its early stages, and the birds they developed are not intended to be eaten by people.

"The genetic modification we describe is a significant first step along the path to developing chickens that are completely resistant to avian flu," Tiley said. "These particular birds are only intended for research purposes, not for consumption."

The birds were altered by a new gene that makes a "decoy" molecule that imitates an element of bird flu virus.
Then the virus is "tricked into recognizing the decoy molecule instead of the viral genome and this interferes with the replication cycle of the virus," the study said.

When scientists infected the genetically modified chickens with avian influenza, the birds fell ill but did not spread the flu to other birds, whether those birds were genetically modified or not.

"The results achieved in this study are very encouraging," said researcher Helen Sang of the University of Edinburgh. "Using genetic modification to introduce genetic changes that cannot be achieved by animal breeding demonstrates the potential of GM to improve animal welfare in the poultry industry," she said. "This work could also form the basis for improving economic and food security in many regions of the world where bird flu is a significant problem."

Discovery News

Dioxin animal feed scare shuts German farms

More than 4,700 German farms have been closed after large amounts of animal feed were found to be contaminated with dioxin, a poisonous chemical.

Officials insist the levels of dioxin do not pose a risk to humans, and that the closures are only a precaution.

Most of the affected farms are pig farms in Germany's Lower Saxony region.

Meanwhile, the EU has warned that eggs from farms affected by dioxin have entered the UK in processed products destined for human food.

The eggs had been sent to the Netherlands for processing and then on to the UK where they were likely to be destined for use in the production of a variety of food stuffs including mayonnaise and pastries.

The dioxin scare has prompted South Korea to block imports of German pork and poultry products from reaching consumers due to health concerns, local media reported. Last week, more than 1,000 German farms were banned from selling eggs after dioxin was found in eggs and poultry.

The government described the extra closures as a precautionary measure; on Wednesday it revealed that some feed for pigs and chickens had been contaminated with dioxin when it was being made.

The origin of the contamination has been traced to a distributor in the northern state of Schleswig Holstein, where oils intended for use in bio-fuels were accidentally distributed for animal feed.

Initially, the scare was confined to Germany but then it emerged that a batch of eggs had been exported to Holland and from there to Britain.

British authorities said that the amounts of dioxin - which is linked to the development of cancer in humans - in any egg would be very small, and not enough to be dangerous.

The difficulty is that German official assurances of safety are being combined with inexact information which seems to change by the day, says the BBC's Steve Evans in Berlin.

The dioxin was discovered in late December, but the extent of the problem was only revealed earlier this week when German officials said 3,000 tonnes of feed had been affected.

Germany's agriculture ministry said that most of the closed farms were ones raising pigs. The ministry said the farms would not be allowed to make any deliveries until they had been checked and found to be clear of contamination.

And European Commission health spokesman Frederic Vincent told a news conference how the problem had now reached Britain.

"Those eggs were then processed and then exported to the United Kingdom... as a 14-tonne consignment of pasteurised product for consumption," he said. "Whether it went into mayonnaise, pastries, I don't know. So we will probably take a look at this with the UK authorities and see what was done with these eggs."

German officials will brief their EU counterparts and the incident could lead to new rules on animal feed.

Dioxins are toxins formed by industrial processes and waste burning.

They have been shown to contribute to higher cancer rates and to affect pregnant women.

BBC

Zimbabwe poultry producers cry ‘fowl’ over imports

by Fortious Nhambura

Chicken imports have flooded Zimbabwe barely a month after the lifting of a ban on such imports.

Local chicken farmers have said the cheap imports are pushing them out of business.At the same time, consumers say they realistically cannot be expected to pay almost double just to support local farmers.

When government banned imports of animal products in March, chicken prices shot to between US$4 and US$5 per kg. This saw 2kg packs of cutlets of local birds retailing for about US$7,30.The end of the ban has seen imports returning at a cost of about US$4 for the same pack. This means imports are selling for roughly US$2 per kg.

Many chicken lovers say the imports from South Africa, Brazil and Turkey are not as tasty as local produce but they cannot afford what the Zimbabwean farmer is giving them. This has left members of the Zimbabwe Poultry Association stuck with tonnes of chickens they cannot sell. Many have to repay finance facilities they accessed to produce the birds and the money is just not flowing in. 

So what makes local chickens so expensive?

Mr Solomon Zawe, the ZPA chairman, says it costs US$2, 85 to rear one chicken in Zimbabwe.
On the other hand, it costs just US$1 in Brazil.

“So even after the transport, the bird has a landing price of US$1, 90 when it gets to Zimbabwe. “They can then sell the chicken for between US$4 and US$5 and make a massive profit. That is possible because the chicken producers in other countries are heavily subsidised by the state.”

The US$1, 90 landing prices translates to 86 percent of the total production costs of rearing a single bird in Zimbabwe. 

A day-old broiler chick costs between US$1 and $1, 05 and requires about US$2, 50 to feed it to maturity. Dressing, packaging and transportation bring the cost to US$4, 15 for large-scale producers. The costs go up for small-scale farmers.

The 2009 Poultry and Products Annual Report says while Brazilian poultry companies do not release production cost information, the estimated average cost of broiler production was about 85 US cents per kg at the time.

And after all these comparisons and the realities of breeding in Zimbabwe, the ZPA blames some retailers for further pushing up costs.

Mr Zawe says: “The problem is that government does not control the marketing of poultry products and retailers end up putting huge mark-ups to chicken. The wholesale price of a 2kg packet of chicken is US$4, 15 . . . but it is sold for up to US$9 in shops.”

Mr Zawe believes that the great potential inherent in the industry is being stymied by imports. The ZPA says 10 000 birds could be lost monthly if local producers are not protected.

Day-old broiler chick production has increased from 700 000 per month in January 2009 to 3, 1 million in March this year. Egg production has also increased. Formal sector production has shot up from 275 000 dozens in January 2009 to 1, 5 million in June 2010.

Prominent chicken farmer Mr Jonathan Kadzura believes government should look at enabling producers rather than just having mechanisms focused on consumption levels alone. “There is a whole industry to protect.”

Mr Zawe says comparing local producers to their foreign counterparts is not fair because the operating environments are different.

“We encourage government to come up with a mechanism that allows imports and discourages dumping of products. This will inspire confidence in the whole agriculture sector. Farmers in Brazil and South Africa survive in a different climate and should never be compared to us. Pitting the local producer with importers will be unfair competition as local producers have to use non-GMO feed additives.”

These are all very convincing arguments and many people sincerely do sympathise with poultry producers. But at the end of the day, money talks, and people do not have much in their pockets.

As Mr Nyasha Matsinde of Glen Norah B says: “We buy what we can afford.”

The Herald

Organic eggs: more expensive, but no healthier

by Jeffrey Kluger

This year, like every year, has been a busy one for America's chickens. What the birds lack in smarts they make up for in work ethic, laying about 78 billion eggs annually (or 6.5 billion dozen), supplying a $7 billion industry. GM should be doing so well.

Like any other workers, hens turn out economy, premium and luxury products — known as factory, cage-free and organic eggs — and consumers pay accordingly. A recent survey conducted in one random city — Athens, Ga. — found factory eggs going for $1.69 per dozen, cage-free for $2.99 to $3.59, and organic for $3.99 to a whopping $5.38.

But it's worth it to pay more because you're getting a healthier product, right? Wrong. Most of the time, according to a just-released study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the eggs are indistinguishable. When there is a difference, it's often the factory eggs that are safer.

The study, led by food technologist Deana Jones, was not designed to explore the question of which egg-laying conditions are best for the hens themselves — simply because there is no question. Factory hens are confined in what are known as battery cages, which leave them crowded and all but immobilized, reduced to little more than egg-laying machines. Free-range and organic chickens have different degrees of freedom to move and are raised on varying levels of higher-quality feed. There's no question what kind of life the birds prefer.

What Jones and her colleagues wanted to learn is whether a happy hen in fact produces a better product. To do that, they relied principally on something known as the Haugh unit — a highly specialized egg-quality metric developed by food technologist Raymond Haugh in 1937. The white of an egg is where all its protein is found; it's made of both thin albumen — the watery fluid that runs farthest from the yolk when the egg is cracked into a cold pan — and thick albumen, the more viscous fluid that stays closer to the middle. The greater the amount of thick albumen, the more nutritious the egg.

"The Haugh unit factors together the weight of the egg and the thickness of the albumen layer at the center," says Jones. And that number, she found in her study, is not affected a whit by how a hen is raised. "We found no meaningful differences at all," she says. "We sampled eggs from a number of stores and kept getting the same results over and over. For shoppers, the decision comes down to your ethical and moral choices."

That, at least, is all that's involved when it comes to egg nutrition. But what about safety? Don't organic eggs have the edge in terms of antibiotics and other contaminants? Surprisingly, the USDA has not devoted a great deal of study to the antibiotic question, mostly because the drugs are used sparingly in the egg-laying industry — at least compared with the cattle industry, in which even healthy animals are kept dosed to prevent infections.

"There's just very little research I've seen on this," says USDA immunologist and microbiologist Peter Holt. "Hens are not routinely treated with antibiotics, though they may be if they're sick." In those cases, the eggs the birds produce lose their organic designation temporarily, until the drugs have cleared their systems.

The bigger problem comes with the environmental contaminants, and here the factory eggs have the edge. Research in both the U.S. and the E.U. has shown that free-range chickens have higher levels of PCBs, simply because they get out more and can peck almost anywhere. "There was a study in California of a free-range or organic farm with a wood-processing facility nearby," says Holt. "The chickens there had 100 times the PCB level of battery-cage chickens." A Brazilian study found something similar with DDT, even though the pesticide, which is slow to degrade, hadn't been used in the area in nine years. "You really have to know the history of the land before you can be sure it's safe," Holt says.

Another mistake some health-conscious consumers make — though it doesn't take the new USDA study to reveal it — is believing that the color of an egg makes a difference and that brown shells are somehow better than white ones. They're not. Color is determined entirely by the breed of chicken laying it, and the fact that brown eggs often cost a little more has nothing to do with quality. "It simply takes more feed to get a brown-shell species to lay," says Jones. "You're paying that additional production cost." As in any other industry, when the workers get a raise — even if it's chickenfeed — you'll see it on the price tag.

Time

Mali's poultry sector overwhelmingly informal

Mali had some 30 million chickens, ducks, guinea fowl and turkeys in 2005, but not enough protein-rich poultry products are consumed locally, according to the government and nutritionists.

In 2006 15 percent of under-five children were too thin or did not weigh enough for their height group, signs of malnourishment, and two out of five children in the same age group were too short for their age, a sign of chronic malnutrition, according to the Ministry of Health.

Poultry is still seen as a luxury, a source of money rather than protein, nutritionist Rouky Bah Tall said in Bamako. "Instead of consuming chicken and eggs, families prefer to sell them without knowing how much natural protein they lose out on or how it could improve their family's nutrition."

The Poultry Development Project in Mali (PDAM) estimates more than 90 percent of poultry farming in Mali is unregulated traditional backyard poultry. "Our backyard is a savings account," one farmer in the Bamako neighbourhood of Moribabougou said.

While more than 70 million eggs and 21,000 tons of poultry meat are produced annually, residents consume at most only 16 eggs per year and 1.7 grams of poultry every day, according to the director of the Poultry Development Project in Mali (PDAM), Ibrahim Ayouba Maïga.

The regional avian flu in 2006 halved the sale of eggs in Mali. Since then, the price and quantity have stabilized, according to a December 2008 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) analysis of Mali's poultry sector.

Adama Tangara, president of the poultry farmers' cooperative in Barouéli, 200km southwest of Bamako, said most of the cooperative's sales are in the capital.

Even though modern poultry farming contributes only 5 percent of all poultry in Mali, "it plays an important role in urban and peri-urban food security," noted the FAO evaluation.

Poultry brings in 7.5 percent of the country's agriculture income and reaps more profits than either beans, potatoes or corn, Livestock Minister Madeleine Diallo Ba said. "It is wrongly perceived as a side trade in rural farming when it actually represents a large pool of animal protein. Poultry plays a significant role in social life, with special symbolic importance in cultural festivities and ceremonies," said Ba.

Nevertheless, nutritionist Tall said that prejudices against eggs persist, such as the belief that children and expectant mothers will have bad luck if they eat too many eggs.

While more egg consumption could decrease childhood malnutrition, it is only one of many local solutions, the national director of nutrition, Raki Ba Samake, told IRIN. "We have a lot of biodiversity and nutrient-rich plants here in Mali. More eggs can help improve nutrition, but we also have other products here that we have not explored."

IRIN

Syrians to establish poultry processing factory in Nigeria

by Hammed Shittu

Nigeria's Kwara State government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a Syrian firm, African Chicken Farm to establish a world class poultry farm at Iponrinin, Ilorin East Local Government area of the state at the cost of $400 million.

The MoU has been described as a giant stride of the present administration at consolidating its agricultural programmes after a successful commencement of commercial farming being undertaken by the Zimbabwean farmers at Shonga in Edu Local Government area of the state.

Apart from this, the state government has also put in place a youth agricultural project located at Malete where youths numbering over 1000 have been exposed to series of farming techniques and thereby enhancing the food production in the state. However, the new poultry project was being established under a private project partnership (PPP) to be handled by a renowned Syrian farmer.

The leader of the Syrian farmers, Sebasten Clamorgan , said that the project was designed to occupy 700 hectares and would cost $400 million. Sebasten, who said he has been on the job for over 30 years, added that the company is encouraged by the success of the commercial farming being pioneered by the Zimbabwean farmers in the state.

He said the project would take off by the end of the year with a sum of $29 million as the first phase, saying it would generate employments for thousands of indigenes. Sebasten noted that the products, which would also be exported, would be far cheaper than the already existing poultry products in the Nigerian markets, adding that three million poultry would be produced on monthly basis at full capacity.

The leader also said that kwarans and indeed Nigerians will be better for it as highly skilled technical staff would be imported to handle the modern machines that would be used to do most of the jobs so as to make the work easier. Sebasten also said that the local poultry farmers would be taught modern techniques in poultry farming adding that day old chicken would be produced at the farm which he said would be the largest in west Africa .

He therefore assured the people of the state that a new lease of life would soon come to them in the highly production of subsidized chickens and other frozen food that would come form the farm.

This Day

Togo aggressively moves against bird flu

Some 17,000 birds died or have been culled since the outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu virus on 9 September on three poultry farms in Agbata, located 10km east of Lome, according to Togo's livestock director, Komla Batawui.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization adviser to the government, Jacques Conforti, says the risk has been contained. “We focused on free-range poultry, and did not cull poultry in coops in the areas surrounding Agbata. This [the culling] should reduce the risk of the virus spreading to zero.”

Conforti says the disinfection has moved along quickly in the past three weeks, “We do not want to lose any time. We try to disinfect a zone in less than 24 hours before moving to the next at-risk area.” He says officials meet with farmers who point out any sick birds, cull the birds, and pay the farmers for the value of the bird, eggs or bird feed that is destroyed. Officials have paid close to US$9,000 so far to farmers to compensate them for their losses since the latest outbreak.

Togo’s Minister of Agriculture, Kossi Messan Ewovor, said this money helps the farmers step forward with their suspicions about sick birds that may carry the deadly H5N1 virus. “This is to assure the poultry farmers they have nothing to lose, and everything to gain in culling sick birds because they help keep their regions and the entire country safe.”

Alphonse Tognizoun, a poultry farmer in Agbata, said he lost more than 1,000 birds as well as some poultry feed. “I got US$4 per bird and half the value of the food for my birds that was also destroyed, or about 33 US cents per kilo. I didn’t lose eggs, but others who did were paid 6 US cents per egg.”

Following the country’s first outbreak of the virus in August 2007, the World Bank had pushed for farmer payments to encourage quick and accurate reporting, but had also cautioned officials about the difficulty of creating a fair and transparent payment programme to prevent fraudulent poultry claims.

Olga Jonas, the World Bank adviser who coordinates donor avian flu funding, had said payment schemes can be difficult to carry out because it can be hard to prove ownership for small producers in remote areas who live in the bush, far from their chicken coops.

But Togo’s livestock director, Batawui, said there was no room for bird fraud, “If we are not the ones who cull and incinerate the birds ourselves, the farmers must bring us their dead poultry. We register it and give them a receipt with their payment. No cheaters this way.”

Following the last avian flu outbreak, Togolese officials requested international donor assistance; the US$500,000 requested has just now arrived from European Union, African Union, African Development Bank, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and World Bank. Half of this money will go toward interventions at the farm-level, such as disinfecting farms, culling, and incinerating birds, while the other half is to be spent on training and equipment to help officials respond to and contain the spread.

The World Health Organization estimates the H5N1 virus has killed or led to the destruction of 150 million birds and the deaths of about 200 people worldwide since 2003.

IRIN

Togo confirms bird flu virus in poultry deaths

Togo's government has confirmed the H5N1 bird flu virus is responsible for the 10 September outbreak that killed 3,500 birds and led to the culling of an additional 1,500 others on three farms in Agbata, about 10km east of the capital.

Since its reappearance in 2003, the highly contagious virus has led to the death of millions of poultry, as well as about 200 people who were infected with the virus by sick birds, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Poultry farmer Antoine Megbeto said he is not worried because officials have killed any remaining birds that might have been infected. Immediately following the outbreak, the country's livestock director, Komla Batasse Batawui, said officials had culled the surviving birds on all three farms with sick birds.

"We are not scared," said Megbeto, "We received training starting one year ago [after the country's first H5N1 outbreak] on how to prevent the virus from spreading. Which is why as soon as I discovered the gruesome and sudden poultry deaths on my farm, I quickly alerted authorities."

But another farmer, Alphonse, is less at ease, "I am scared for my family's health. A team of doctors come around every morning to reassure us everything is well. But my family and I are nevertheless scared to eat poultry, even if they tell us that it is safe as long as it is well-cooked."

The government has promised compensation to farmers who lost birds; the farmers say no one

Shortly after the country's first H5N1 outbreak in June 2007, the government, like many of its West African neighbours, banned poultry imports from countries with confirmed cases of bird flu. But despite the ban being in place for about one year, there is still an underground market of illegal poultry imports from countries on Togo's banned list, according to local consumers.

The first bird flu cases in Togo were discovered on a farm that had received a shipment of birds from Ghana, months before Ghana's government announced a bird flu outbreak and an export ban in May 2007.

Poultry vendor and importer, Fiacre Lodonou, said his profits have slowly sunk over the past year because of the more stringent rules that have cut off his cheapest supply of poultry. "We only started business 15 years ago. Now, because of this [H5N1] virus, my sales have plummeted by more than 70 percent. I cannot even afford to order new birds now." The businessman says he fears the flu will not kill only birds, but also his business.

IRIN

Kenya, Uganda end their spat over trade in poultry products

Uganda can now export poultry products to Kenya. This is a result of an agreement signed by Kenya's High Commissioner Japheth Getugi and Uganda's state minister for trade Nelson Gagawala in Kampala recently.

The agreement was signed after a two-day meeting held to discuss trade impediments between the two countries. According to the agreement, Ugachick Limited and Biyinzika Farmers can export one-day old chicks. However, this should be done through appointed Kenyan agents.

A source said Ugandan firms had complained about the difficulties in exporting day-old chicks, eggs and other poultry products to Kenya. The firms also complained about the delays in acquiring transit permits to export poultry products to Burundi and Rwanda through Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

They noted that the process took two weeks, adding that Ugandan exporters had opted to transit through Rwanda. The delegates also discussed Uganda's ban on the importation of poultry and meat products.

The two countries agreed to initiate a joint committee to gather information for reviewing the lifting of the ban.

New Vision

Kenya, Uganda in row over barriers to agricultural trade

A trade row is brewing between Uganda and Kenya over the alleged use of non-trade barriers by authorities in the two countries to block the entry of certain agricultural products into their respective markets.

The issue first came to light late last year when officials in Kampala protested a decision by their counterparts in Nairobi to deny Ugandan poultry breeders export permits that would enable them to sell day-old chicks in the Kenyan market.

Matters took an interesting turn this April when Nairobi’s envoy to Kampala wrote to Uganda’s Trade Minister arguing that an 11-year-old ban on the exportation of Kenyan livestock and associated products to Uganda not only violates the World Trade Organisation’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement, but also contradicts the spirit of the East African Community’s Customs Union.

Kenya’s High Commissioner to Uganda, Japheth Getugi, noted in an April 8 letter to Uganda’s State Minister for Trade, Nelson Gaggawala Wambuzi, that the ban on Kenyan meat and meat products as well as bull semen, was unwarranted because the country had put the necessary safety measures in place.

“Kenya considers the bans on both beef and bull semen as non-trade barriers that must be removed,” wrote Mr Getugi.

However, senior officials in Uganda’s Agriculture Ministry said a committee had been set up to review the ban — not just for Kenya but for all the other countries affected. We are already working on lifting it,” said the Director of Animal Services Dr William Olaho Mukani, who is also the chairman of the Ban Review Committee. “The ban could be lifted in a year’s time.”

Dr Olaho Mukani said the government still had reservations about lifting the ban because of cases of crafty individuals claiming to import livestock products into Uganda from Kenya when they are actually importing them from other disease-infested countries using Kenya as a transit route.

Mr Getugi defended Kenyan livestock in his letter, saying that according to Kenya’s Livestock and Fisheries Development Ministry, the level of safety of Kenyan meat and meat products as stipulated in the country’s Meat Control Act and sanitary measures is consistent with OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) and Codex guidelines on BSE (Mad Cow Disease) and food safety.

Mr Getugi further advised Uganda to note that BSE, which led to the ban on bull semen from Kenya, is classified as a notifiable disease — making it mandatory for the authorities to make any cases public.

“Further, there has not been any scientific proof of transmission of the disease through semen. Kenya considers the ban on beef and bull semen as a non-trade barrier that must be removed,” added the Kenyan diplomat.

While statistics on the quantity of bull semen that Uganda imported from Kenya prior to the ban were not readily available, it has been established that by the time of the ban, Uganda was importing an average of 20,000 straws — measures used during service of an animal — of semen per annum.

The national co-ordinator of Uganda’s Animal Breeding Centre in Entebbe, Dr Nelson Semambo Kiwanuka, said Uganda is currently importing an average of 35,000 straws of semen per annum, mainly from New Zealand and South Africa. He said this was way below the country’s needs.

“There are 3.5 million head of cattle that we can inseminate countrywide, but the actual number that we inseminate is 35,000 every year, so the scope is really wide. Our target is to inseminate at least 50,000 every year, and in the next two years we should have increased the number to half a million,” said Dr Semambo.

It is this potential market that Kenyan breeders are looking to take advantage of should the ban on the export of the country’s livestock and livestock products to Uganda be lifted.

The current beef between the two countries is the latest episode in an evolving trade dispute over agricultural products and livestock. The EastAfrican reported in its February 18-24 issue that the Poultry Association of Uganda had protested Kenya’s continued reluctance to open its market to Ugandan exporters although Kenchick — Kenya’s largest exporter of day-old chicks — was allowed to export freely to the Ugandan market.

In a bid to solve the impasse, Kenya’s Deputy Director of Veterinary Services and Principal Veterinary Officer visited Uganda on November 17–22 to carry out a risk assessment of the two Ugandan poultry firms exporting to Kenya, as well as to assess the state of the country’s veterinary services.

With one Ugandan exporter — Ugachick — saying that it was losing up to Ush18 million ($10,000) a week since it could not export the 15,000 day-old chicks for which it had secured a deal in Kenya, Uganda’s Third Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Community Affairs, Eriya Kategaya, along with the Trade Minister, pursued the matter with their Kenyan counterparts when the release of the report was delayed by four months.

Commenting on the findings by the Kenyan team, Mr Getugi noted that not only did they find the disease reporting systems of the two exporting firms they visited to be inadequate, they also found the legal framework governing operations of hatcheries in Uganda in relation to disease control to be wanting.

“The general finding is that the capacity of the Veterinary Department in disease surveillance is wanting and diagnosis is not adequate. The central laboratory in Entebbe lacks the capacity to deal with most poultry diseases,” he noted.

The Director of Animal Services in Uganda’s Agriculture Ministry, Dr William Olaho Mukani, acknowledged that Uganda’s laboratory had been neglected in the past. He, however, added that it was now being refurbished after the government received funding from the World Bank to improve the country’s preparedness to tackle the Avian influenza (bird flu) epidemic.

“In the restructuring exercise, the laboratory was left out, which was very unfortunate. But we have increased the equipment and refurbished the laboratory after we got funding from the World Bank. In the future, we are planning for the laboratory to get its own separate funding from government,” said Dr Olaho Mukani.

However, Ugandan authorities have threatened to reject the report by the visiting Kenyan veterinary services team on the state of Uganda’s veterinary services. Uganda accuses Kenya of breaching guidelines on confidentiality set by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), and of trying to unfairly influence matters by raising them at the political level before they are discussed by the technical experts.

Dr David Kauta Nawa, the Commissioner for Livestock Health and Entomology in Uganda’s Agriculture Ministry, accused his Kenyan counterparts of jumping the gun.

He stated: “The method that they are using to make their submissions is irregular. We are supposed to communicate as veterinary service professionals, study the report and then bring it jointly to the political level, but now the things have started at the political level.

“According to the guidelines given by the OIE, all of us as veterinary service professionals are supposed to act impartially and not to be swayed by political sentiments. But when such a report first goes to the political level, it means they don’t want to work impartially.”

The Kenyan report further noted that Uganda does not have a policy on poultry, meaning that the government does not have a comprehensive plan for monitoring the sector.

Dr Kauta however shot down this argument, saying Uganda did not need a poultry-specific policy since it already had a sector-wide policy.

He said: “We have a disease control policy in this country. What they fear is the spread of diseases, and the policy handles the issue of poultry diseases. So why do they want a poultry policy? Do they now want us to have a separate goat policy, cattle policy, sheep policy? You can’t have a policy on maize, cassava, rice and every other plant under the sun.”

The Kenyan team’s report, according to Mr Getugi, added: “The linkage between the Ugandan government veterinary department and the poultry industry is weak, with a lack of regular inspection and monitoring of poultry industry activities.”

Mukani however said that the problem had been sorted out and that more personnel had been recruited to carry out monitoring.

The report from the Kenyan assessment team further noted that the linkages between the District Veterinary Services and the Directorate of Veterinary Services are weak since the former operate under the local authorities.

“Though the country is strong in terms of veterinary services human capacity, the backing services (laboratory services and vaccines) are weak. Consequently, the country relies on services from South Africa and Makerere University. This is mainly driven by the demands of the poultry firms and not the government/department mandate,” reported Mr Getugi in his letter.

The Kenyan government has now set tough new conditions for their counterparts in Kampala to adhere to if Ugandan poultry breeders are to be allowed to export their products.

The most controversial of the conditions is the requirement that the Kenyan Director of Veterinary Services be granted free access to evaluate Ugandan veterinary services on a biannual basis and at the same time carry out a risk analysis.

Dr Kauta however argued that the issue the Kenyan government was raising as a condition is supposed to be standard practice between countries that are involved in cross-border trade, according to OIE guidelines.

These people are talking what is obvious,” he said.

“The law says any country is free to ask another country to evaluate their services, especially if goods are being imported from that country. Why are they again bringing it up as a condition? Have we ever resisted when they ask to evaluate our services? In fact, we are the ones who wrote to them in the first place to come and inspect our facilities so I don’t know why they are putting it as a condition.”

Dr Kauta said the two countries should be working for a common cause rather than finger-pointing. He said: “We are establishing common trends in the control of animal diseases so the idea of one country going behind our back and saying the services of the other are not good enough doesn’t help. We should be talking of a team at the centre helping all countries to perform together.”

The East African

No taste difference between organic and conventional chickens

Organic chickens might have a better life but when it comes to the end, there is no difference in the taste between free range and factory-raised birds, according to a taste test by Australian food experts.

Consumer advocate Choice lined up a panel of four food experts to taste eight different roast chickens -- two organic, two free-range, one corn-fed and three regular factory-farmed birds. But despite the higher cost of free-range, corn-fed and organic chickens, the experts could not tell the difference in taste.

"While there were no significant differences in their scores, all agreed chickens don't have as much taste as they used to," said a statement from Choice.

The consumer advocate said the narrow range of fast-maturing breeding stock now used in almost all chicken production made any differentiation between the meat produced by different methods effectively meaningless.

"Our advice is that buying organic or free-range might have other important benefits, such as the birds having a better life, but it doesn't necessarily mean a tastier roast dinner," said spokesman Christopher Zinn. "The cook makes much more difference than the way the chicken is raised."

Choice said that since the 1960s, the time it takes to produce a two kilogram chicken has almost halved to around 40 days from 70 days with the exception to this being the organic standard, which specifies that organic meat chicken must be grown to maturity over a period of 63 to 70 days.

The consumer group's advice to find a chicken with real flavor was to find a smaller producer who uses traditional breeds and lets the chickens live longer or buy the largest chicken you can find, as the bigger it is the longer it has lived and the flavor is likely to be better.

Reuters

Subsidised imports decimate Ghana's poultry industry

Ghana now accounts for as much as 30 percent of all poultry products imported into West Africa sub region from the European Union. These imports of live birds, frozen chicken parts and full chicken are posing serious threats to the local poultry industry.

According to a report in 2005, 50,000 tonnes of chicken was imported into the country. Unfavourable domestic policies, where there had been a low tariff regime have contributed to the continuous dumping of subsidized poultry products from the EU and the US.

Demand for local poultry has collapsed, threatening the livelihoods of over 1,000 poultry farmers in both small and large-scale poultry farming in Ghana.

In 2002 alone, more than 26,000 tonnes of chicken was imported into the country, mostly from the EU. In 2004, that figure was estimated to be as high as 40,000 tonnes. Cameroon, Togo, Senegal and South Africa are among the other nations receiving imported frozen chickens and chicken parts.

Ghana's position was further made hopeless when the poultry industry lost the battle with government not to reduce tariffs on imported poultry. The tax on imported poultry was reduced from 40% to 20%, whilst that on rice also came down from 25% to 20%. This was seen by farmers as a reversal of the government's pledge in 2003 to increase tariffs on imported poultry products and rice to boost their production in the country.

The European Union, the source of most of the imported chicken, provides 43 billion euros to its farmers annually.

The President of Ghana National Poultry Farmers’ Association, Kenneth Quartey, said the decision to pass the law is a symptom of weak leadership in the country which had bowed to external pressure.

The current situation of the poultry industry would be compounded when the Economic Partnership Agreement with the EU takes effect in 2008. The total opening of borders under this agreement can only lead to a paralysis of productive sectors in the countries of the South such as Ghana, with the invasion of European goods and services, especially in the agricultural field, where Ghanaian producers would face up to largely subsidised products.

On the other hand, it is not obvious that the removal of tariff barriers in Europe means free access of ACP exports to this market. Several limitations can exist which are related to quality standards or to phytosanitary measures.

The poultry sub-sector might be in danger of collapse. Already, big and small poultry farms in Ghana have cut down output and staff considerably because they can not compete with the cheap imports from EU and USA.

The Statesman

Two bird flu outbreaks in Benin

Benin has discovered two outbreaks of bird flu among poultry which it believes to be the deadly H5N1 strain, the first such cases in the West African country, a senior health official said on Friday.

The cases were discovered late on Thursday in Adjarra, some 15 km (9 miles) north of the capital Porto Novo, and on a farm in the commercial capital Cotonou.

"We found several dead birds. We went ahead with tests which turned out to be positive," Julien Toessi, a senior public health official, told Reuters in an interview.

"We have taken samples which we have already sent to Italy to be confirmed but we are convinced that these (bird) deaths are due to the H5N1 strain of bird flu," he said.

Health Ministry officials said several hundred birds had been slaughtered as a precautionary measure in a 5 km (3 mile) radius around the two separate locations. All farms within a 15 km radius were being disinfected.

The import of poultry had been banned and restrictions on the movement of birds between farms imposed.

Benin's eastern neighbour Nigeria has been one of the countries worst affected by bird flu in the region, reporting sub-Saharan Africa's first confirmed human death from the disease early this year.

Its western neighbour, Togo, declared its first outbreak of the most deadly strain of avian influenza in June and has since found new cases.

H5N1 bird flu has killed more than 200 people around the world, mainly in Asia, since the disease re-emerged in Hong Kong in 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

Outbreaks in Africa have raised alarm bells because epidemiologists fear the continent's widespread poverty, lack of proper veterinary and medical facilities and huge informal farming sector could allow outbreaks to go unnoticed for longer, increasing the risk of the virus mutating.

Reuters

Ugandan farmers use plant medicines for poultry diseases

Research carried out by Makerere University has revealed that about 80% of Ugandan poultry farmers know how to use medicinal plants to treat bird diseases.

Prof. Bukenya Ziraba of the university's Department of Botany said the research shows that many farmers were using medicinal plants to treat cough, diarrhoea, swollen eyes, mites, worms lice and coccidiosis, as well as for Newcastle prophylaxis.

Plant species like Capsicum frutescens (kamulali) and Cannabis sativa (enjaga) were used in all the three districts of the study, while Nicotiana tobaccum (taaba), Aloe sp (lukaka) Vernonia amygadalina (omubirizi) and Tagets mihuta (kawunyira) species were used in Rakai and Mbarara.

Bukenya says the most common way of preparation and administration of the medicine is by crushing the plant material, adding water and administering the concoction orally. Some farmers prefer to serve it directly to the chicken, while others put the medicine in a container and leave the chicken to drink it when they are thirsty.

Bukenya also says using medicinal plants saves farmers losses due to outbreaks of diseases. “Since some of the farmers cannot afford to buy modern poultry drugs, medicinal plants work as a substitute,” he says.

Ziraba presented the research during a symposium on drugs discovery from African flora, organised by the Natural Research Network for Eastern and Central Africa.

New Vision

Togo confirms new cases of bird flu

Togo has discovered outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu on two poultry farms near its border with Ghana and closed markets in the area to stop it spreading, said Agriculture Minister Yves Mado Nagou.

Togo, which declared its first outbreak of the most deadly strain of avian influenza in June, found new cases in the past fortnight on farms at Adetikope, 20km from the capital Lome, and Aflao, an outlying western suburb of Lome near the Ghana border, Nagou said.

Nagou said poultry on both farms had been culled, the farms placed under quarantine and all poultry markets in the country's southern coastal region - its most heavily populated - ordered to close.

Authorities hoped to re-open markets as soon as this week, he said.

Outbreaks in Africa have raised alarm bells because epidemiologists fear the continent's widespread poverty, lack of proper veterinary and medical facilities and huge informal farming sector could allow outbreaks to go unnoticed longer, increasing the risk of the virus mutating.

Several West African countries have had H5N1 outbreaks since early 2006, including Nigeria, which reported sub-Saharan Africa's first confirmed human death from the disease early this year.

IOL