2294 part 1 final report.pdf - Agra CEAS Consulting

Prevention and control of animal diseases worldwide
Part I: Economic analysis: prevention versus outbreak costs
However, given the dependence on the poultry sector of poverty stricken households in the developing
world and especially the least developed countries, the culling and high mortality of birds has a significant
impact on their livelihoods 85 . This impact is compounded by the consequential on-farm losses and the
broader indirect effects discussed below.
It is noted that in a given production system, an inverse relationship appears to exist between production
losses and control costs, in that the higher the treatment and control expenditure the lower the losses and
vice versa. Moreover, this relationship between losses and expenditure is non-linear reflecting the nonlinear
nature of the classical production function (A115).
4.3.2.2. Control costs
This type of cost is rarely documented with data. Only in the case of FMD outbreaks in developed
countries (e.g. UK), and the more recent HPAI outbreaks in both developed and developing countries,
these costs were explored in depth.
Given the data scarcity, any global estimates of the control costs available by literature usually draw on
the above cases. For example, the African assessment of needs and gaps in the context of HPAI (A258)
evaluates the operational cost of the culling team activities, disinfection of premises and disposal of dead
birds taking into consideration the experience of two of the most documented cases: Vietnam and Nigeria
(Table 7).
4.3.2.3. Other direct production losses
Widely referred to as consequential on-farm losses, these depend on the period that the farmers stay out of
production during and after the crisis is over. These types of losses are generally not well documented in
the literature and therefore difficult to assess and quantify.
In the case of HPAI, given that poultry restocking should normally take place only a minimum of 3-4
weeks after the premises have been cleaned and disinfected (following OIE and FAO recommendations
but also as demonstrated in practice in the countries affected by HPAI – see for example A91), a month
can be considered as the minimum disruption period.
A distinction should be made between restocking in the village and backyard farming system, which
appears to be an autonomous process, and restocking in commercial and industrial systems. Generally, the
main problems that farms in the latter sector encounter in continuing with poultry raising are related to the
high prices of inputs, difficulties in procuring day-old chicks and fear of resurgence of Avian Influenza.
Evidence has shown that even without these problems, it takes a long time to re-stock to pre-outbreak
levels. For example, with no constraints to restocking (i.e. assuming day-old chicks and other inputs are
readily available) the time taken to complete restocking in Vietnam was estimated to be 12 months for the
backyard system and 5 to 8 months for the industrial and commercial systems (A91). These losses can be
mitigated if farmers can switch to alternative production, as was the case for example with certain farmers
85 It is noted that the impact of HPAI on small holders of poultry is not new, as these holders are accustomed to
large losses through NCD.
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