(Business in Cameroon) - The Cameroonian Minister of Livestock, Dr Taïga, has just put an end to the doubts of the local poultry farmers, who feared that the government would authorise imports of chicken based on the devastating effects currently brought on to the local poultry sector by the avian flu. “There are enough chickens in the country. Apart from the outbreaks of avian flu, the local market is rather well supplied. There will therefore be no imports. Especially as the health problem seems to be heading towards a positive resolution”, he reassured.

Imports of chicken on the Cameroonian market were banned in 2005, after a petition to the public authorities by local poultry farmers and the Citizen Association for the Defence of Public Interest (ACDIC in French), who denounced the collapse of the local poultry sector due to massive imports of chicken. When the sector was picking up with the support of over FCfa 2 billion in subsidies given to the poultry farmers by the State of Cameroon, in 2006, a hysteria born out of the discovery of the avian flu virus on a duck carcass in Maroua, Extreme-North, further weakened the sector.

The discovery in May this year of an avian flu outbreak in the Cameroonian capital, with the loss of 75% of the flock of the Mvog-Betsi Poultry Complex, again created fears within the Cameroon poultry sector. This especially as, after Yaoundé, four other outbreaks were discovered in the Western, Southern regions and in the Adamaoua.

Brice R. Mbodiam