Benguet lifts ban on chicken dung

ENTRY of chicken dung resumes in the province of Benguet.

Benguet Governor Melchor Diclas on March 24 through an executive order lifted the ban on entry of chicken dung in the province.

According to the governor, the Department of Agriculture issuance of Memorandum Circular no. 7-2020 ensures unhampered movement of all food and production items including farm inputs.

In a separate memorandum from the Bureau of Animal Industry of the agriculture department assured strict prohibition of movement of any live poultry and poultry by products including culled layers and chicken dung from Nueva Ecija.

Previously, Benguet announced the suspension under Executive Order 2020-18 instructing all chicken dung delivery truckers and farm owners to immediately stop transportation of chicken dung from poultry farms in the lowlands effective immediately.

The governor anchored the order to laboratory results confirming an outbreak of Avian Influenza Subtype H5N6 in Nueva Ecija which could possibly be transmitted to humans.

The order is also line with the declaration of the President placing the country under a state of public health emergency by virtue of Proclamation No. 922 due to the confirmed local transmission cases of Covid-19.

Diclas said chicken dung drivers and helpers however must abide with safety protocols and quarantine checkpoints and undergo thermal scanning as part of the precautionary measures against Covid-19 threat.

While all types of vehicles transporting chicken dung for use as fertilizers within the province is allowed to pass quarantine checkpoints through the designated cargo lanes.