Poultry industry in eastern Afghanistan under threat

JALALABAD (PAN not stopped, members of the poultry farm owners’ association warned on Sunday.

With 1,200 farm owners its members, the association had 85 farms in Laghman and 120 in Kunar, the deputy head of the Spin Ghar Poultry Association, Fazal Muhammad Sayad, told Pajhwok Afghan News.

Farm owners could supply chickens to all provinces of the country but they had several problems, he said. Whenever they transported their products, police, transport, custom and municipality officials asked them for bribes at checkpoints.

Under the relevant trade law, the poultry industry is exempt from taxes, according to Sayad, who said the association supplied an average of 100,000 chickens across the country. He added 30,000 of them were produced in Nangarhar and the rest imported from Pakistan.

Around 50pc of the imported chickens died due to road closures and harsh weather conditions, Sayad said, adding Pakistani traders were trying to sell their products cheaply in a bid to damage farms in the area.

Three years back, he recalled, there was not even a single poultry farm in the province. But now there are several farms, some of them producing up to 100,000 chickens daily, according to Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock Director Eng. Muhammad Hussain Sapi.

They had invited representatives of 14 aid organisations to help develop the industry, said David Quarles, the head of Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives for the North, East, West (IDEA-NEW) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

mas/mud