Colleages and I had an op-ed piece in the New York Times today on the recent backyard farming ban in Jakarta:
Who Pays to Stop a Pandemic?
Bird flu has not yet turned into a pandemic, but it is already killing the meager hopes of some of the world’s poorest people for a marginally better life.
When poultry become infected with the deadly strain of avian influenza (H5N1), it is essential that all birds nearby be culled to prevent further spread. We all stand to benefit from this important pandemic prevention strategy, recommended by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Unfortunately, however, the world’s poor are unfairly shouldering the burden of the intervention.
Last month officials in Jakarta, Indonesia, announced a ban on household farming of poultry there. The domestic bird population of Jakarta is estimated at 1.3 million. Thousands of families were given until Feb. 1 to consume, sell or kill their birds. Now inspectors are going door to door to destroy any remaining birds.
The Indonesian government pledged to pay about $1.50 for each bird infected with the H5N1 virus, a sum that may approximate the bird’s fair market value. But most birds that have been killed under this policy are healthy, so their owners, most reports suggest, will receive nothing.
Of course, culling of flocks and restrictions on farming may be necessary to contain avian influenza. But is is important that such policies be implemented rationally and fairly. Sadly, Indonesia has been the target of a lot of finger pointing for not doing enough to control the spread AI (we'll save the debate about sharing virus samples for another post). What worries us in the case of the Jakarta ban is that the government seems to be doing too much, or at least failing to take into account the livelihoods of its own citizens. Culling to stop an active infection is essential, but to impose a blanket ban on all small-holder farming--based essentially on the perception that backyard farming is hazardous by its very nature (see previous post about why this view is misguided)--could have disatrous effects, both in the short term and the long term.
I know I sound like a broken record on this point, but compensation is key. And as far as we can tell, there are no plans in place to compensate farmers in Jakarta. And even if compensation (something approaching fair market value) were offered, that would only be a partial solution if the farming ban is envisioned as permanent (which I gather is the case here). Think about it this way: the life cycle of a chicken is about 6 months, so farmers are constantly replenishing and augmenting their livestock from hatched eggs (See this brief animation from FAO). Compensation may be the best short-term fix, but in the case of a total ban, a just compensation scheme would have to account for the long term income deficits that farmers suffer. But so as not to get ahead of ourselves, even a basic compensation scheme would be pretty expensive for Indonesia. From the op-ed:
Such a program in Jakarta alone would be expensive. Just to compensate families for their culled birds would require nearly $2 million, not including the cost of administering the program. Indonesia’s domestic bird population countrywide is estimated at 300 million, so if the culling program were to be expanded beyond Jakarta, the total compensation cost could run as high as $450 million.
Indonesia’s avian influenza budget for the coming year is reported to be less than $50 million. Clearly, without donor assistance, the government cannot afford to compensate families and farmers fairly. So the burden of pandemic prevention must also fall on the world’s wealthy nations.
Last year, the United States, the European Union and other nations pledged more than $2 billion to the global war chest for avian influenza response. Developing a program to compensate poor families in countries with limited resources is an enormous challenge. But it is time that the money pledged by the donor countries reach the people who are already the first victims of the next pandemic.
Of course, donors have reason to be wary about handing over millions of dollars to a country with a highly decentralized regional administration, where accountability is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. But it's clear that Indonesia needs help. And it's also clear that if the government of Indonesia feels that it's not getting the help it needs, it will take matters into its own hands, for better or for worse.
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