CAMBODIA-THAILAND: Different Countries, Different Styles

Different countries in the Mekong Region may have been affected by avian flu in similar ways, but their responses have been quite varied – shaped by trade concerns, diverse economies and types of poultry farming.

For instance, government officials in Phnom Penh say that while Thailand’s approach of using culling and compensation to poultry owners work for that country, Cambodia’s economic and social circumstances call for a different tactic in addressing the avian flu issue.

There is no common solution that works for all, they say. The Cambodian government “prefers to teach people how to fish, instead of giving them fish”, Kao Phal, the spokesman for avian flu issues, said, referring to the country's greater focus on education and preventive measures rather than culling and compensation.

Thailand is the fourth’s largest exporter of poultry products, quite unlike most of Cambodia’s farms, which raise animals for household consumption.

In 2003, right before the first outbreak of avian flu, Thai poultry exports accounted for some 7 percent of the world trade in poultry, with a value of nearly one billion U.S. dollars, according to Nirundorn Aungtragoolsuk, director of the Thai Bureau of Disease Control and Veterinary Services. In 2006, two years after the first outbreak and despite a revival of exports, Thailand saw its poultry sales drop almost four times to between 20 and 30 billion baht (between 570 and 860 million dollars).

Thailand’s 1,200 industrial farms and processing factories, which have passed international standards, produce 15 million livestock weekly. Thai authorities estimate that almost 10 million people, a sixth of the population, raise about 80 million poultry.

From this profile, it is obvious that the Thai poultry sector is particularly sensitive to the H5N1 virus.

This also explains why the Thai government has been quite aggressive in dealing with the disease. As of 2006, it has spent 100 billion baht (2.85 billion dollars) in efforts to control and curb the spread of the virus. As of the same period, it has paid about 5.2 billion baht (148 million dollars) as compensation to breeders whose poultry had to be slaughtered to prevent future outbreaks.

This preventive slaughter reached considerable proportions: the authorities had to slaughter 30 million livestock, and cull another 30 million poultry between 2003 and 2004. Of the 3.7 million poultry that died or were culled in 2005 and 2006 amid outbreaks, only between 10 and 20 percent had actually died from the H5N1 virus. In other words, the remaining 80 to 90 percent had been slaughtered as a preventive measure.

But Cambodia has chosen to be more selective in slaughtering poultry, because large-scale culling would undercut most families’ source of food, officials add. It has mainly family-run farms, in contrast to the bigger sector of mechanised, commercial production over in Thailand.

According to the National Animal Health and Production Investigation Centre (NAPHIC), more than 90 percent of the 16 million poultry livestock inventoried in Cambodia are bred in family farmyards, mostly for home consumption. In 2004, it reported, there were about 50 semi-commercial farms of egg-laying hens (206,000 livestock), more than 90 semi-commercial chicken farms (442,000 poultry) and 331 duck farms (300,000 livestock).

Poultry farming is the main source of income for more than one million people in this country of more than 14 million people, the centre added.

But even with more selective culling, the economic impact of avian flu has already considerably diminished the spending and earning power of Cambodians in the poultry sector. NAPHIC estimates that the semi-commercial farms in areas hit by the H5N1 virus lost 750 dollars from the death and culling of 1,000 chickens, and 2,150 dollars from the loss of 1,000 egg-laying hens.

Likewise, workers in the poultry sector have seen their pay plunge from 47 dollars per month, before the first outbreak in 2004, to 28 dollars now.

The non-contaminated, semi-commercial farms have not been spared by the crisis: their products were removed from market stalls for two consecutive months in 2004, when the flu was first detected.

Poultry farmers have also been confronted with a shortage of chicks and an increase in supply costs, which ate into their profits. For every 1,000 chickens, they earn 120 dollars in May 2004, a 40 percent drop from the year before. On top of that, these farms had to install biosecurity systems that cost between 1,000 and 3,000 dollars.

Selective culling of poultry in a radius of three kilometres around the centre of an outbreak of avian flu – as recommended by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) – has had an adverse impact on the food security and income of thousands of families, NAPHIC says.

The impact of culling also goes beyond the mere procedure of killing itself. Villagers subsequently found it difficult to acquire chicks and ducklings, given the ban on importation from neighbouring countries and the lack of egg-laying hens in the country.

But amid all this, the Cambodian government spokesman, Kao Phal, says a compensation policy akin to Thailand’s is not necessary. “The 8,575 slaughtered poultry and 18,268 chickens that died because of the avian flu in Cambodia between January 2004 and August 2006 is not comparable to the deaths and culling of millions of poultry in Thailand,” he said.

“We have chosen selective culling and are explaining to people the reasons for these. In fact, most village people have participated in culling (operations),” he explained. “We have thoroughly thought about the consequences. The farmers generally do not own more than five to ten chickens.”

According to Kao Phal, the Cambodian government prefers longer-term solutions to short-term ones. For instance, he says the government is relying on the training of 10,000 village veterinarians to spread correct information and knowledge on methods to prevent avian flu, and to identify it among poultry.

“If we had to compensate contaminated farms, what would a clean farm do if it isn’t able to sell its poultry? There’s a risk that it would place some sick animals among non-contaminated ones in order to earn money,” he explained. “The disease would spread, others would act the same way as these farms, and it would then turn into a real epidemic.”

Said Kao Phal: “If Thailand is able to implement a system of compensation, that is its policy. The situation is different for each country.”