India: bird flu prompts feed ban

Tamil Nadu’s state government has imposed a ban on trucks transporting poultry feed from the neighbouring state Karnataka following a recent outbreak of bird flu in turkeys.

The ban was imposed on Saturday (11 Nov) and on Sunday 52 trucks carrying feed from Karnataka were turned back.

Krishnagiri district collector Pooja Kulkarni was reported as saying, “We had started spraying disinfection medicines on all the vehicles that were coming from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu when the bird flu outbreak issue flared up two weeks ago. Now, we had instructed all our officials in the check posts on Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border near Hosur to send back the poultry feed-laden trucks from Karnataka,” Pooja said.

“All the trucks coming from Karnataka will be inspected and those trucks laden with poultry feed such as corn, ground-nut and soya cakes will be sent back. These are the main ingredient and foods for chickens in Tamil Nadu,” the collector said.

“The ban will be maintained until the Karnataka government announces that their state is free from bird flu outbreak,” the collector added.

However, the ban has been criticised by Tamil Nadu’s farmers association. P Nallathambi, president of the Tamil Nadu Poultry Farmers Association (TNPFA) said “The government should have consulted us before imposing the ban.”

According to Nallathambi, some of the feed trucks are from Maharashtra via Karnataka and with limited feed stock available if feed doesn’t arrives on time birds will die.