VIETNAM: Poverty Pushes Farmers to Undercut Ban on Duck Breeding

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Ngo Thi Thu Phuong – Vietnam News*

TAY NINH, Vietnam, Feb 12 (Newsmekong) - On a rough, earthen road surrounded by green rice paddies, Phan Anh Tam throws unhusked rice, mixed with mash and dried fish, to the thousands of white ducks waddling around his thin legs.

For 15 years now, Tam has been raising ducks in Ben Cau district of the south-western Vietnamese province of Tay Ninh province, near the Cambodian border. But these days, he is worried.

“Even if I'm not allowed to raise ducks anymore, I must keep going on, but in Cambodia,” Tam says, making himself heard over the din of the quacking.

Cambodia is Tam's first choice if the government cracks down on his business and forces him to move his birds, because it is near his hometown and because Cambodia has more lax laws on breeding ducks amid concerns over outbreaks of avian influenza in East Asia in recent years.

The Vietnamese government has imposed a temporary ban on the breeding of ducks as part of the country's attempt to control avian influenza. It focused on ducks because waterfowl is believed to be less resistant to infection compared to other species.

Three waves of outbreaks of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza have led to the culling of poultry topping 50 million and 42 human deaths across Vietnam between late 2003 and 2005.

But after an outbreak eases, many farmers have stealthily resumed their poultry production, illustrating the challenges of managing a recurring disease like avian flu in communities that depend on these animals for livelihood.

In Tam's town alone, more than 100,000 ducks, accounting for 95 percent of the total duck population, were hatched in 2006, according to local statistics.

Reports about fresh outbreaks in some provinces in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta – the first locality in Vietnam that confirmed the return of the lethal virus in early 2007 after one year of having kept it under control – showed that most of the infected birds were newly hatched and had not been vaccinated.

Against a backdrop of farmers refusing to abandon their livelihood, local authorities in Ben Cau moved to impose harsher preventive measures against avian influenza in this particular border district. Provincial officials say they hope the measures will not only protect local poultry from the H5N1 virus, but also domestic fowl around southern border crossings.

Two of the latest human deaths from bird flu occurred in Cambodian provinces along the border, sparking new fears here that ducks from Cambodia could make their way into Vietnam.

No Stamp, No Sale

“We know nothing until waterfowl are grown up and raised in open-air places,” Huynh Van Nau, head of the district's Animal Health Division, said of the late detection of illegally hatched ducks. “Even though it's against the regulations to raise ducks, we can't cull mass amounts of domestic fowl during an outbreak-free period – that would kill farmers' livelihoods in the absence of an imminent threat," he said.

After losing 100 million Vietnamese dong (6,250 U.S. dollars) when the government culled 4,000 of his ducks during the 2003 outbreak of avian influenza, Tam actually quit his business. But having neither the knowledge nor the cash to switch careers, he restocked and went back to breeding ducks in late 2005.

Tam recognises that his farming practices do not comply with government regulations, but maintains he cannot give up his means of living. “If they want to kill them, they'll be killing my children, because these (ducks) are my means of feeding them,” the father of five said.

He did, however, alter his farming methods. In 2006, Tam ceased his decade-long habit of letting his ducks graze freely among the ricefields. Now, his fowl are confined to a fenced area on a section of a local canal for at least 10 days before they are moved to another place. This is in keeping with experts' advice to watch where animals stay and live, to prevent the mixing with wild birds, and to separate different kinds of animal species from one another.

The 43-year-old farmer has also gone to the extent of living out of a canvas tent several kilometres from his home, so he can monitor the ducks more closely.

“This farming model costs us more money and time, because I have to buy feed for the ducks,” Tam explained. “They used to eat only snails and insects when they were allowed to roam free. But if I didn't change this, I wouldn't be allowed to raise ducks."

Like most farmers in Vietnam and South-east Asia, Ben Cau residents have traditionally raised poultry on a small scale in their backyards, so they are not used to virus prevention measures like vaccination, biosecurity measures or epidemic surveillance.

Under a mass vaccination campaign of poultry, local officials require farmers, by law, to inoculate their ducks against the H5N1 virus -- in contrast to neighbouring countries that have avoided making vaccinations official policy in addressing avian flu.

While vaccinations are free-of-charge for legal breeders, those found raising fowl illegally must pay 1,000 dong (6 cents) per shot.
Nau, from the animal health division, explained: "Most farmers have to obey, otherwise we don't grant them the certificates that allow them to sell their ducks to markets."

After each vaccination, local officials collect serum samples to test for the virus.
“These are just technical measures, but it's not easy to persuade farmers to follow,” Nau said.

At first, Nau the veterinarian recalls, many farmers refused to inoculate their ducks out of fear that vaccines could hamper the growth of their poultry stock. “But they were told to either lose a small amount of profit, or live with the risk of becoming penniless,” he pointed out.

Learning from the high costs of 2003 outbreak here, efforts by poultry farmers and local authorities have paid off -- Ben Cau has not reported an outbreak of avian flu for more than three years.

Prevention the Key

But recent bird flu outbreaks in seven provinces and one city in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta underscore the importance of prevention. "In the long run, I think we must restructure our farming model to eradicate the virus," explained Nau.

Central authorities and international experts are now working on a healthier, more hygienic way of poultry farming.

Most of Vietnam's estimated 60 million ducks are free-range animals, which always carry a higher risk of bird flu contamination from migratory birds. It is this kind of farming, which has been part of local culture for a long time, that is harder to introduce biosecurity measures in.

Nguyen Nang Vang, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's livestock production department, said: "It's easy to adopt preventive measures against epidemics at industrial and closed duck farms, but the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta has X number of small-scale farms that are hard to keep track of."

Vang also acknowledges the fact that a steady demand for duck meat drives many farmers to earn their profits illegally.

Indeed, the ban on breeding poultry “has not been very effective” says Jeffrey Gilbert, avian influenza senior technical coordinator with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation in Vietnam. "In fact, to my knowledge the duck population has only dropped by five percent since the ban was brought in," he said.

"It is very difficult to enforce, mainly because it affects people's livelihoods, especially in the case of duck farmers," Gilbert added. "Being able to let ducks feed themselves in the fields, then selling them at the market, translates into not much effort for substantial profit. But in terms of these ducks getting sick or carrying the disease silently and infecting other birds, it makes this type of farming very risky. And there is always a risk of these birds infecting wild birds that can further spread the virus."

Vietnamese agriculture officials have mapped out a draft plan to adopt biosafety measures in waterfowl breeding ahead of the planned lifting of the duck-hatching ban on Feb. 28. "Under the plan, which is now open for discussion before being passed for wide application, farmers are still allowed to raise ducks, but under strict surveillance and only in bird flu-free localities," Vang said.

Vang and his colleagues agree that while the ministry is unable to forbid free-range birds, the government should provide financial aid to poor farmers who need to change jobs due to avian influenza.

"We could offer billions of dong that the government siphons into bird flu prevention every year to the farmers with interest-free loans in three years," argued deputy head of Livestock Production Department, Nguyen Thanh Son.

This way, farmers could earn enough money in order to carry out safe farming measures, instead of having incentive to hide their ducks from the government. "The model resembles what Thailand has done for several years," Son said.

As part of this approach, officials hope to increase the vaccination rate among poultry, and intend to mete out strict punishment to those who break the rules.

"I strongly believe that the new model would work effectively," Son asserted.

But farmers like Tam remain sceptical that duck farming can remain viable, given fluctuating market prices and bird flu outbreaks many warn about in the future. "If I could sell it all and find other work, I would," Tam said, herding his ducks back into their cage. (END/IPSAP/Newsmekong/NTTP/JS/07)

(*Ngo Thi Thu Phuong of the ‘Vietnam News' newspaper wrote this article under the ‘Imaging Our Mekong' media fellowship programme, coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific and Probe Media Foundation Inc.)