Bangladeshi poultry farmers benefit from Chinese feed producer

DHAKA — Fear and uncertainty due to common diseases have long plagued poultry farmers in Gazipur, located on the outskirts of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh.

About one-fourth of Bangladesh's total poultry production comes from Gazipur.

But now, farmers there are free of anxiety when dealing with common diseases, after a leading Chinese feed producer started ensuring supplies of quality feed, cutting-edge technologies, as well as timely disease and management information.

Mostafizur Rahman runs his own poultry farm in Gazipur.

"The chicken shed you see here houses 12,000 chickens, and on the other side there are more such sheds. I've a total of about 40,000 chickens on this farm," Rahman told Xinhua recently as workers were seen giving chicken feed from New Hope, one of China's largest feed producers.

Rahman's farm has witnessed impressive growth in the past decade since he started giving quality feed from New Hope and receiving disease management information.

"I have fed this to my own chickens and also sell some outside," said Rahman, also a dealer for New Hope.

"I've benefited from doing business with this company for a long time. Their products are of good quality. I've improved day by day in this poultry farm business," said Rahman, adding that he sells almost 200 metric tons of New Hope feed products per month.

New Hope, which started production at a newly built feed mill in Gazipur in 2006, is now one of the largest poultry feed producers with about a 7 percent market share in Bangladesh.

Farmers in Gazipur said New Hope helps them get quality feed at a competitive price.

They said poultry farming is a trigger for growth of the rural economy and a fortune changer for the villagers.

Many educated youths are also taking to poultry rearing as a vocation and turning into small entrepreneurs.

"From New Hope we've learned a lot about modern farming with the help of their service team in the field," said Rashed Kabir, another poultry farmer.

He said many are motivated to engage in poultry farming because of the support New Hope offers, apart from providing quality feeds, which are cheaper compared to other companies.

Rabeya Sultana Soma, a veterinarian who works at a New Hoperun veterinary lab, said, "We collect samples from the farmers, then we diagnose the disease through various tests."

Because of the establishment of this lab, the first in the private sector to diagnose poultry diseases in Bangladesh, marginal farmers in the area are getting services from them, she said.

"They know how the disease is happening and how prevalent it is so that they can treat it at the right time to increase their productivity," the veterinarian added.

He Quanshui, the regional president for New Hope, said New Hope's production capacity of feed is 400,000 tons per year and 40 million chicks per year, currently in Bangladesh.

Under the service and training of New Hope, local farmers are becoming experts in breeding through the company's high-quality veterinary pharmaceutical products and management technology.

According to He, New Hope also actively makes contributions to society.

It cooperates with the Asian Development Bank in training local female farmers. It is aiming to train 7,200 female farmers, of whom 2,415 have already learned poultry farming skills.

"I believe that Chinese companies like New Hope can bring better lives to the people of Bangladesh with their decades of management experience and thousands of employees," said He.

Xinhua