Coronavirus Fear Prompts Indian Poultry Farmers to Bury Thousands of Chickens Alive
Amidst the rising number of COVID-19 cases in India, unfounded fears of transmission have led to a steep fall in chicken prices. Owing to this situation, desperate poultry farmers in Karnataka’s Belagavi and Kolar districts buried thousands of chicken on their farms.
The farmer, Najeer Ahmed Makandar, loaded around 6,000 chickens, all about a month old in a truck and dumped the live birds in a large pit in Nulsoor in Belagavi’s Gokak taluk. He also shot a video of the awful burial that has gone viral and is being passed off as a measure to mitigate the spread of coronavirus.
A dejected farmer Nazeer Makandar from Lolasoora village in #Gokak, #Belagavi decided to bury #chicken from his #poultry farm, following steep fall in price due to #CoronavirusOutbreak. @DeccanHerald @CMofKarnataka @mani1972ias #Coronavid19
Nazeer Makandar pic.twitter.com/OExEPM39ay
— Niranjan Kaggere (@nkaggere) March 10, 2020
Makandar said that the price for one kilogram of chicken has come down to Rs 8, while the feed needed to increase the weight of the chicken costs Rs 50 for one kilogram. As he could not afford to feed thousands of chicken, he sought the help of a JCB to dig a huge pit and buried the chickens alive. He does not expect the situation to improve any time soon.
In another incident, around 9,500 chicken were buried alive at Magondi in Bangarapet taluk in Kolar district. The chicken were buried due to the sharp price decline on a farm owned by Ramachandra Reddy of Bangarapet and operated by Satish from K R Puram, Bengaluru, on a contract basis. A Tamil Nadu-based private firm, which bears the maintenance costs, was rearing the chickens on this farm.
Unable to afford to feed these chickens, burying them seemed a good option to the poultry farmers.
Month old chickens mercilessly dumped in a ditch and buried alive
According to the sources in the poultry industry, several farmers were staring at huge losses after investing lakhs of rupees as demand has been declining for over a month due to coronavirus fears in customers, which has not shown any thinks to the fowl so far.
India is not the only country where chickens are being killed due to COVID-19 that has taken the lives of over 4,000 people worldwide since its outbreak in December 2019. In China, the epicentre of the virus, mass culling of chickens was reported earlier in the year, forcing China to consider importing chicken from the United States to fulfill the protein deficiency.
Via: The News Minute
