Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury said Friday local scientists can play an important role in innovating new vaccines for protecting the sector from bird flue considering its significant contribution to the national economy. "The scientists should invent vaccines and anti-viral medicines to protect the poultry industry as the sector has witnessed a disaster due to the outbreak of bird flue in the recent years that caused huge losses to the economy," the minister said at the inaugural ceremony of the 7th "International Poultry Show and Seminar-2011" as chief guest at Bangabandhu International Convention Centre (BICC) at Agargaon in the capital. The Bangladesh branch of World's Poultry Science Association (WPSA), organised the event. The WPSA Bangladesh branch secretary general Dr MA Saleh made the address of welcome. Food Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque and Fisheries and Livestock Minister Abdul Latif Biswash were present as special guests. Secretary, Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, Ujjal Bikash Dutta and director general (DG) of Department of Livestock Services Md Ashraf Ali and president of WPSA Dr Bob Pym and president of Bangladesh Agriculturists Association Nitish Chandra Dev Nath were present, among others. President of the Bangladesh branch of WPSA Md Abdur Razzaq Mia delivered the vote of thanks. The Agriculture Minister said the local scientists should conduct research and develop the local variety of chickens of both broiler and lair categories for reducing the country's dependence on importing foreign variety of chickens. "The government alone can't provide jobs to all, and the poultry sector can play an important role in creating employment for the unemployed and also ensuring nutrition for the people," the minister added. "It is difficult to mitigate the growing demand for eggs and meat by rearing chickens and cattle at the household level only, and the poultry sector has been meeting a big portion of the people's nutrition requirement," Matia Chowdhury said. "The poultry sector has started flourishing since the 90s and the sector has passed a difficult time in the recent past due to the outbreak of bird flue that forced many entrepreneurs to cull about 4 million of birds that has led to huge losses to the economy," she added. "The prices of poultry feed have gone high. The government should take initiatives to produce the poultry feed locally. The entrepreneurs should be given all necessary supports," the minister said. She stressed easy marketing of poultry products and giving subsidy for meeting the energy demand and fulfilling other requirements for the sector's flourishing. Food Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque said, "Many people of our country are yet to get nutrition despite having food. The poultry sector has come up with nutrition and the people started getting used to eating cultured fish and broiler chicken that helps reduce the nutrition demand." With regard to attaining food self-sufficiency, the Food Minister said, "We (the government) have a target to achieve food self-sufficiency by 2012, reaching some main objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) and to reduce poverty to 15 per cent by 2021."
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