A stupid and shortsighted decision

The Ministry of Agriculture has notified the country's poultry farmers that losses incurred as a result of bird flu will not be compensated. This seems to be a sure way to spread the epidemic, if it ever reaches Jordan.

The current approach being adopted in countries where the disease has appeared has been to destroy the entire population of birds where the infection occurred. This means that if it were not for government assistance, the owners of the birds would have to shoulder the entire cost of the loss.

What is scary is that this provides a disincentive for the poultry farmers to report and deal with any problems which might show up at their farms. The result will probably mean that infected birds will be sent to market, instead of being destroyed. Not only will this lead to the transmission of the disease to Humans, but it will lead a severe drop in consumer confidence in Jordanian agricultural products. Like Jordanian farmers don't have enough problems.

I believe that this miserly approach is shortsighted and dumb. There is no way that the cost of covering farmer's losses due to avian flu will be anywhere near the damage that would be caused by encouraging farmers to cover up the problem.