AN OFFICIAL of the Southern Mindanao Agri Resources Trading Inc. (Smart) executive urged poultry growers to increase their biosecurity measures following the avian flu outbreak in San Luis, Pampanga.
“Any outbreak is very serious. It can have very big losses for farmers and can cause shortage problems. We don’t it for granted. What the Department of Agriculture is currently planning about exporting chicken may be put on hold because of avian flu virus. That’s how serious it is,” Smart Inc. president Eduardo So.
“It’s good that the avian flu was contained and detected immediately. However, we should not be too complacent. We have to do our part to increase the biosecurity measures. In fact, we’ve been calling everybody to increase the biosecurity measures here,” he added.
He assured that the poultry stocks for Mindanao are enough and that there is no threat yet of the virus in the region. Aside from that, the current stocks are of good quality especially that Mindanao is already certified free of the foot-and-mouth disease for poultry animals.
He added specific areas in Luzon might possibly source out chickens and breeder eggs from Mindanao to support their buffer stocks, however he assured that the local demand will be given priority than those to be send out to Luzon.
San Miguel Foods Inc. (SMFI) had earlier released an official statement confirming that their poultry is free of avian flu.
“Upon immediate testing, our farms and our entire broiler flocks yielded negative results for avian influenza. There are also no manifestations of any symptoms of the disease or any abnormal increase in mortality that are being observed. We have implemented rigorous biosecurity measures in all SMFI controlled farms to avoid contamination from avian influenza,” read SMFI's official statement.