Backyard Poultry Bans Won't Stop Avian Flu, Researcher Says

Poultry is more than an important source of protein and income for many people in developing countries.

Last week, in a move to stem the spread of the deadly avian flu virus, officials in Indonesia's capital city of Jakarta announced a ban on all backyard poultry production. But despite the motivations of the ban, the policy may in fact exacerbate health risks by unfairly targeting the city's poorest residents, according to Danielle Nierenberg, a food researcher at the Worldwatch Institute. “While these bans may be a way to confine avian flu and prevent its spread in the short run, the long-term economic, nutritional, and social devastation will be devastating,” she says, noting that many poor urban dwellers in Indonesia and elsewhere depend on poultry for their livelihoods.

So far, more than 15 nations, most of them in Asia, have imposed restrictions on freerange and backyard poultry production. There is a growing sense that these bans will protect citizens from the effects of the highly pathogenic H5N1 or “bird flu” virus, which has killed 161 people in nine countries since 1997. “We have to separate fowl from residential areas,” Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari explained in a recent BBC article. “That is what we have learnt from Vietnam. That country wiped out bird flu because its people followed the government's rules.” Indonesia currently has the highest human death rate from avian flu, with 61 fatalities in total and four already this year, according to the World Health Organization.

But because poultry is so important to many urban and rural poor, particularly in Asia, the bans may have perverse effects, Nierenberg says. “Chickens mean more than just meat, eggs, and a steady source of income to small producers in developing countries,” she explains. “In addition to having cultural significance, they act as ‚'walking credit cards.' If your kid gets sick, if you need to buy a school uniform, you sell your chicken for extra cash.” Rather than targeting the poor, Nierenberg believes, government policies should address the rampant spread of factory farms, which cramp large numbers of genetically similar birds together in unsanitary situations, creating ideal conditions for spreading disease.

Because governments rarely offer full compensation for livestock killed in mass culling operations, poultry owners sometimes avoid the bans by hiding the birds in their homes. But by bringing the animals into closer proximity with humans, this can greatly increase the probability of avian flu transferring to people, Nierenberg notes. In a recent article in World Watch magazine, she observes that in Egypt, all of the people known to be infected with the disease had been hiding the birds in their homes. “This goes to show that without adequate compensation, education, and alternative sources of income, the flu will continue to spread,” she says.

This story was produced by Eye on Earth, a joint project of the Worldwatch Institute and the blue moon fund. View the complete archive of Eye on Earth stories, or contact Staff Writer Alana Herro at aherro [AT] worldwatch [DOT] org with your questions, comments, and story ideas.