UN radio

Bird flu -economic consequences

By Birol Urcan

Hello and welcome from UNMIK On air

Traders in Pristina market claim that lately the sale of chickens has dropped drastically.

Faton Gërbeshi is a trader who now sells vegetables, but until last month he used to import and sell chickens.

“Since this disease has appeared we are not working with chickens anymore, Firstly at the Customs they don’t allow the import and in Italy from where we import, because we import our products from Italy they don’t export or sell anymore.”

Natural sound chicken

Although there is as yet no reported Bird Flu in Kosovo, the public has stopped buying, economically the most affected group from the Bird flu panic are the poultry farmers.

Abdrurrahman Konjufca is one of them; his farm on the outskirts of Lipjan has around 180,000 chickens.

“ for the moment I personally do not have any big fall in the sale, but the traders that I work with, are complaining that business has started to go down“

These economic consequences are being caused by the community’s fear of Bird Flu.

But what will happen if the disease actually appears in Kosovo.

Tom Hajdaraj Deputy Minister of Agriculture explains.

“We: based in a law have a right of extermination of all birds in Kosovo with genera spontanum, it means without asking for the price of it.

And I have to thank the farmers which have expressed their readiness for cooperation on this issue through their statement in the press or directly to us”

On the other hand not all the farmers agree with the Ministry on this issue

Abdurrahman Konjufca is one of them.

“In Asian countries in Romania , in Greece and in Macedonia in non of these countries that had Bird flu appearance did they exterminate the whole population of the birds, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in Kosovo such a thing happens “

According to the statistics of the Ministry of the Agriculture, there are 2.5 million chickens in Kosovo.

In case of the total extermination, the Ministry is planning to reimburse the farmers for their loss.

And the cost of this for the Government would be around 15.million euros.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture Tom Hajdaraj thinks that this money can be found.

“We have information that (the) European Union has allocated a big amount of money, I think around one billion euros for this issue.

We will make our request conform to the regulations.

We will ask for our part, which hope god will not be used this time, but we have to ready “

On the other hand in our investigation we discovered that the EU has not yet set up this emergency fund of one billion euros and that the talks are ongoing.

Secondly it is stated that this fund is for member states of the European Union, which Kosovo is not.

And thirdly according to the statement of the EU Health Commissioner; Markos Kyprianou the fund will be used to pay for anti-virals, vaccines and antibiotics.

Direct compensation to farmers for the destruction of their chickens was nowhere mentioned.

So it seems that there almost no chance for Kosovo to get help from this European Union fund.

If Kosovo does not have access to this fund, and the Bird flu arrives, what are the government plans for compensation for the Farmers?

Tom Hajdaraj explains.

“Then we will start everything from zero maybe from 1, we have to re analyze the situation of the Kosovar Consolidated Budget.

We will ask from the IMF and the Economic Fiscal Council and other competent pillars to look again at the way of compensating from other funds, I don’t want to mention them now because we are not yet sure where and how”

So far the IMF has a well known position concerning needed saving so that the government can meet this years budget.

In other countries governments have plans to contain outbreaks by localized extermination, as well as general extermination; In the case of Kosovo any funds for extermination maybe difficult to find, therefore all plans of containment of Bird Flu outbreak should be considered.

You have been listening to UNMIK ON AIR.

Thank you, and good day.