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Rivers threatens clampdown on illegal poultries over strange disease

Rivers threatens clampdown on illegal poultries over strange disease

The Rivers State Government has threatened to shut down unregistered poultry farms and those located in unathorised places as part of measures to check the outbreak of a killer disease ravaging poultry farms across the state.

This followed the outbreak of a new disease (newcastle) which was reported by some poultry farm owners who said they lost thousands of birds about three weeks ago.

The Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Fred Kpakol, while speaking in Port Harcourt, said the ministry was taking bold steps to identify the affected farms in order to get rid of the disease.

Kpakol, however, said the ministry would only attend to registered poultry farms.

He said, “We have taken steps in that direction. Before we have this flu, we had told the farmers; we had been on air asking poultry farmers to register with us.

“A lot of the places you see, just because of giving the information to the ministry of agriculture, they would hide and even site poultry farms in unauthorised locations.

“If we see poultry farms in places they are not supposed to be, we will close it down. We have to be very careful with some of the things we eat because zoonotic diseases follow from that point.

“We are aware of it. We are educating those that are under our data base. We are also doing everything possible and reaching out to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture for their support.”

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