Poultry for Healthy Living

Bangladesh heading towards safe poultry production & export

A silent resurgence in poultry sector has portrayed a promising prospect of Bangladesh. Within four decades, investment in poultry sector has spiked from 179 million USD to 3.573 billion USD. Around 2.5 million direct and another 3.5 million indirect jobs were created, where women account for 40 per cent of the total workforce. This has led to the poultry industry being the second largest job creator in Bangladesh at present. The stakeholders, along with the concerned government agencies, are praising the local entrepreneurs for this remarkable success. They are also giving due credit to the ‘International Poultry Show & Seminar’, which has opened a new era of technological development.

The 11th International Poultry Show & Seminar was held in Dhaka from 5 March to 9 March with the slogan “Poultry for Healthy Living“. The poultry industry in Bangladesh is doing more than just providing food or meeting demands for animal protein; it is also generating employment opportunities, reducing poverty, helping to improve rural economy, empowering women, improving health etc. And all these are further contributing to achieving the National Goals as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Exhibitors, scientists, researchers, academics from 22 different countries around the globe and approximately ten million visitors witnessed a thriving poultry industry in Bangladesh in the 11th International Poultry Show & Seminar-2019. Two major goals were set in the seminar; (1) Antibiotic free eggs & chicken meat production by 2030 and (2) Poultry export from Bangladesh by 2024.  The industry leaders predicted that the country would be able to generate approximately 50 billion BDT in investments within the next two years owing to the 11th International Poultry Show.

The 11th “International Poultry Seminar” and the “International Poultry Show” were held on separate dates and venues for the first time in Dhaka. The ‘International Poultry Seminar’ was held from 5th to 6th March at Hotel Le Meridien while the ‘International Poultry Show’ was held from 7th to 9th March at the International Convention City Bashundhara (ICCB). 99 technical papers were presented in the seminar, out of which there were 45 oral and 54 poster presentations. Roughly around 230 local and international companies from 22 countries exhibited their products in 800 stalls in the poultry show. To attract attention of the general masses ‘Egg & Chicken Selfie Contest’, ‘Poultry Cooking Contest’ were also arranged. Two very prospective projects were also officially launched during the show on 8 March. The first, “Poultry Farmers’ Enlightenment Project” aims to provide technical support, renovate and upgrade existing farms along with setting-up model farms and gradually increasing their numbers all over the country for ensuring production of safe egg & chicken meat by the grassroots farmers. The second, “Youth Entrepreneurship Project“, aims to attract the youths in poultry farming & business in order to increase youth entrepreneurship in poultry sector. WPSA President Prof. Dr. Ning Yang, General Secretary Mr. Roel Mulder, WPSA-BB president Mr. Shamsul Arefin Khaled, Secretary Mr. Mahabub Hassan and BPICC president Mr. Moshiur Rhaman attended the inauguration ceremony of the two aforementioned projects.

Roundtable to strengthen ties between industry & media

The organizers- World’s Poultry Science Association-Bangladesh Branch (WPSA-BB) and the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Central Council (BPICC), took series of programs targeting the show & seminar. With an aim of strengthening mutual cooperation between industry and the media, a roundtable with the Media Gatekeepers were arranged on 16 February at the Dhaka Intercontinental Hotel. The media gatekeepers said that even now, the Bangladeshi consumers are being misguided by misconceptions about poultry eggs & meat. Inconsistent findings of various studies, coming on media from time to time, are also confusing the general consumers. Their suggestion was to break the silence and talk about the health benefits of eggs & chicken meat using the private and public print & electronic media.

Roundtable: Poultry for Healthy Living

Another roundtable was held on 25 February at the National Press Club to discuss the existing challenges and to express commitment of the Bangladeshi poultry industry for producing safe eggs and chicken meat. The speakers in that roundtable said that the government’s main three targets were to implement the Vision 2021, graduate Bangladesh to a developing nation by 2024 and fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets by 2030. For this reason, only economic development was not enough rather the main aim was to ensure secure and nutritious food and establish a healthy nation. They said that the government needed to lay emphasis on improving the poultry industry for growing more food & animal protein to reduce poverty, malnutrition and to develop a healthy nation. The president of WPSA-BB Mr. Shamsul Arefin Khaled said, only ‘rice’ intake cannot ensure a healthy nation therefore intake of animal protein especially egg and chicken meat should be increased. According to him, Bangladesh is working to ensure production of antibiotic free poultry meat and eggs by 2030.

11th International Poultry Seminar

The poultry scientists and researchers of the 11th International Poultry Seminar argued that Bangladeshi poultry industry has the ability to improve production & supply of quality protein. They suggested to go for accelerating research, putting more emphasis on bio-security, enhancing capacity to combat new diseases and reducing cost of production. They pointed out the need of a socio-economic model of healthy living for Bangladesh and also making a brand of the Poultry industry in Bangladesh for future foray into the international market.

During the 1st day, Mr. G.L. Jain of the Venkatesshwara Research and Breeding Farms PVT. LTD, India, presented a paper on “Breeding strategies for broilers and layers under shifting paradigms”;  Mr. Frank Siewerdt, of the Cobb-Vantress, Inc., USA presented a paper on “Genetic improvement of broiler chickens: a success story of efficiency and sustainability”; Milind Limaye of the CevaPolchem Private Ltd., India, presented a paper on” Water quality management: mitigate the risk!”, Mr. O.P. Singh of the Huvepharma SEA (Pune) Pvt. Ltd., India, presented paper on “Emergence of Asian food basket – opportunities & challenges”; Mr Shariful Islam and Mr. Saiful Islam of the Bangladesh Brand Forum and Bangladesh Poultry Industries Central Council respectively presented a paper on “Poultry Sector Branding Strategy and Road Map 2024”; M.Giasuddin presented a paper on “Avian influenza A: prevalence and control strategies in Bangladesh”;  Mr. M. Nooruzzaman presented a paper on  the “Emergence of a novel genotype of clade 2.3.2.1a highly pathogenic avian influenza in domestic poultry in Bangladesh”;  Ms. J.A. Begum presented a paper on “Segment reassortment events between highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 and the recent H9N2 avian influenza viruses from Bangladesh”; Mr. M.M. Rahman presented a paper on ” Clinical features and economic impacts of H9N2 low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) in commercial layer chickens in Bangladesh”;  E.P. Calvo, presented a paper titled ” Effect of dietary supplementation with a novel microbial muramidase on growth performance of broiler chickens: a meta-analysis”;  A. Junsey presented a paper titled “Effect of sodium butyrate protected with sodium salt of coconut fatty acids distillates on growth performance of broilers”; A.C. Mazumder presented a paper on “Effect of exogenous multi-protease on performance of commercial broilers”; M.T. Islam presented a paper titled “Supplementation of diet with microbial and thermo-stable 6-phytase with recommended and deficient Ca and P level on broiler performance”; D. Sapcota presented a paper titled “Effect of feeding Lactobacillus reuteri PIA16 isolated from the gastrointestinal tract of indigenous chicken of Assam, India on the productive performance of broiler chickens”; P. Krishnan presented a paper titled  “Bacillus subtilis DSM 32315 supports the intestinal integrity of broiler chickens under necrotic enteritis challenge”; K. Palaniyandi presented a paper titled “Effect of in ovo injection of Lactobacillus acidophilus on the production and health performance of commercial broilers”; V.M. Shelke presented a paper titled “Comparative study of commercially available single and multi-strain probiotics in broiler performance”; M.A. Samad presented a paper titled “Advent of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N6 virus in Bangladesh”; J. Alam presented a paper titled  “Myxovirus resistance gene (Mx) diversity in chicken and exposure analysis to avian influenza virus”; T. Luupanyalerd presented a paper titled “Comparative Correlation between Bursa Bodyweight Index with different types of live infectious Bursal Disease Vaccines for Commercial Broilers in Thailand”; Marzia Rahman presented a paper titled “Molecular characterization of multidrug resistant Salmonella   spp. and detection of multidrug resistance gene cassette class one Integron intl.”

The papers presented in Day-2 were:

  • “Chicken respiratory infections: differential diagnoses and control strategies” by Kannan Ganapathy, University of Liverpool, UK
  • “Alternative to antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) in food animal production” by Chanthirasekaran, Kemin Animal Nutrition and Health, Singapore
  • “Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – a one health problem and the need to dramatically decrease (prophylactic) antibiotic use in all parts of poultry production” by J. Morrow, Bioproperties Pty Ltd., Australia
  • “Innovations for sustainable poultry nutrition” by Leo den Hartog, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
  • “Nutritional technology adoption and sustainability of the poultry industry” by Santiago Ramirez, DSM, Singapore
  • “Broiler-breeder ration formulation strategies to improve offspring performance” by Shivaram Rao, Cobb-Vantress, Inc., USA
  • “The role of digital technology in food sustainability and healthy nutrition” by Yiannis Christodoulou, Progressus, Thailand
  • How to feed and manage layers for long production cycle by P.G. Dumoulin
  • Gaining Greater Feed Intelligence and Reducing Feed Costs Through NIR Analysis by A. Criado
  • The effect of retinal and extra retinal photo stimulation by LED light on the performance, blood properties and meat qualities of broiler chicks by M.R. Hassan
  • Use of layer droppings for biogas production in combination with cow dung or water hyacinth by S.M. Amanullah
  • Accurate quantification of feed materials using LC-MS/MS method revolutionizes understanding of multi-mycotoxin occurrence regionally and globally by N. Adams
  • 2018 Worldwide Mycotoxin Occurrence in Feed Materials and Implications for Poultry Production by M. Muccio
  • Feed mill industry in Bangladesh: A recent survey in 2018 by M.M. Hossain
  • Poultry research and development in Bangladesh: Current scenario and future potential by N.R. Sarker
  • Effectiveness of yeast cell wall in layers on intestinal and ovarian colonization of Salmonella enteritidis by I. Barrows
  • Effects of resin acid composition on broiler performance in comparison to ionophoric in-feed coccidiostat by S. Hasan
  • Phytogenic growth promoter: A novel approach for sustainable poultry industry by Sanjib Khargharia
  • The effects of a phytogenic additive on the performance and intestinal morphology of broilers administered a coccidial vaccine in comparison to antibiotics by Anne Möddel
  • Commercial potentials of locally developed meat type chicken strains: On-farm performance of parents by M.B.R. Mollah
  • Performance of Multi Colour Table Chicken Developed By Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute by M. A. Rashid
  • Conservation and Improvement of Native Chicken: Performance of Sixth Generation by ShakilaFaruque
  • The polymorphisms in microphthalmia associated transcription factor (MITF) gene related to duck’s meat quality traits by A.A. Bhuiyan

International Poultry Show

The World’s Poultry Science Association- Bangladesh Branch is in first place with the highest number of members, said WPSA President Prof. Dr. Ning Yang. The WPSA-BB president on the other hand claimed that the 11th International Poultry Show was the biggest show of the Sub-continent and would proceed to be the biggest show in Asia in days to come.

The 11th International Poultry Show commenced on 7 March with an inauguration ceremony. The Agriculture Minister Dr. Abdur Razzak, MP, attended the ceremony as the Chief Guest while Kazi Wasi Uddin, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, attended as the Special Guest. Dr. Hiresh Ranjan Bhowmik, Director General, Department of Livestock Services (DLS), and Dr. Nathu Ram Sarker, Director General, Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI), were the Guests of Honor. The Keynote paper was presented by Dr ABM Abdullah, Former Dean of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU).

Dr. Abdur Razzak, MP, said, “The government is laying heavy emphasis on the poultry sector as the country wants to be a self-sufficient protein producer. Not quantity but the quality is our prime goal. We want to supply safe food for all.”

Dr ABM Abdullah said the poultry meat and eggs can play vital role in fulfilling protein deficiency. There are myths about poultry meat and eggs but he opinioned that they were safe for the human body, even for patients with heart diseases and hypertension. Eggs contain good cholesterols, vitamins and micronutrients, therefore everyone should intake at least one egg every day; Dr. Abdullah advised.

Dr. Hiresh Ranjan Bhowmik said, poultry is supplying protein to all at an affordable cost. BPICC President Moshiur Rahman expressed that the investment in poultry industry will be double within the next decade. He urged the government to cut taxes on maize and other raw materials to facilitate the growth of the local industry. He also demanded unhindered supply of vaccines and permission to produce them locally.

WPSA-BB President Shamsul Arefin Khaled said, “Once upon a time we were known as the Bangali with rice & fish, but in the future we will be known as the Bangali with egg, fish and meat.”

Closing ceremony

The 3-day 11th International Poultry Show ended with plans of coming back once in 2021 with greater intensity and higher impact. WPSA-BB president Mr. Shamsul Arefin Khaled expressed his hope to start poultry export by 2024 as the local producers are expecting a major shift from antibiotic to probiotic and bio-security. The  State Minister for Fisheries and Livestock (MOFL) Mr. Ashraf Ali Khan Khasru, MP, said in his speech as the chief guest of the closing ceremony that the govt. is also keen about safe poultry production and has enacted the National Livestock Development Policy, Poultry Development Policy, Fish Feed & Animal Feed Act 2010, and the Food Safety Act, 2013.

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Raisul Alam Mondal, Secretary, MOFL, marked the price spiral of poultry raw materials as a big challenge. He also said that the rapid development of antimicrobial resistance urges the need for effective strategies to reduce antibiotic use in animal health production systems. He also said the government has taken initiatives for exporting poultry products to abroad particularly in the Middle East countries and is going to prepare the guideline and Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for exporting poultry meat and meat products.

Vice-Chancellor of the Bangladesh Agriculture University, Professor Dr. Mohammad Ali Akbar emphasized on the nutrition sensitive economic growth.

Mohammad Mahfuzul Hoque, Chairman of the Food Safety Authority proposed to build modern slaughter house and phasing out live bird markets.

DG, Livestock Dr. Hiresh Ranjan Bhowmik emphasized on banning unauthorized selling of antibiotics by the drug shops.

BPICC President Mr. Moshiur Rahman opined that investment worth BDT 50 billion in poultry sector will be increased within the next two years with the influence of the 11th international poultry show & seminar.  Mr. Rahman urged the government to give subsidy on pro-biotic and pre-biotic import for the sake of safe poultry production.

Conclusion

The poultry industry of Bangladesh is growing fast. The local entrepreneurs are confident that if they get necessary support from the government, further investment will not be a problem. They have faith in their indigenous skills & techniques which will help them to compete with the global giants. However, they need various kinds of support, such as, advanced technology and research. In this regard, the foreign companies might prove to be helpful.

The 11th international poultry show was significantly bigger than the 10th show and the 11th international poultry seminar was of a higher standard than the previous ones in all aspects, including the depth of issues, quality of papers and level of resource persons and participants etc.

Unity among the Bangladeshi entrepreneurs is their biggest strength. The emergence of local big companies, young & promising entrepreneurs, quality education & institutions are some of the other major factors which will help Bangladesh in keeping a strong base in the local market and also help them to transition into the international market.

The international poultry show and seminar that takes place once every two years is a tool to be geared up with innovative technologies and ideas. The 11th show and seminar may have ended but the Bangladeshi Poultry Industry has started a new movement with a new vision. The silver jubilee of this exhibition might be held in the next term on 2021. The poultry world might once again be delighted to see Bangladesh, its success and the Unity of Bangladeshi Poultry Stakeholders.

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