Indonesia pushes bird flu education

By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Jakarta

Many small-scale farmers do not know much about bird flu

Laughter bursts abruptly from the veranda of Punjang's house.

Shaded from the afternoon sun by a thick tree, Punjang sits on the floor, moving beans around a large piece of paper.

His wife watches, bemused, as two of Indonesia's new bird flu trainers explain the rules of the game.

"These are your chickens," says Wiwin, pointing towards a pile of red beans. "And these are chickens that are sick."

Punjang is trying to play along, but he is finding it funny. Wiwin moves some beans across the paper. Punjang shakes with laughter again.

Not that Punjang has much to laugh about.

The elderly chicken scratching sedately around the edge of his veranda is the only remaining sign of his livelihood.

Six month ago, he had hundreds of birds, he says, but within the space of a day or two, they all suddenly died. He did not know much about bird flu then.

The same is true of almost all Indonesia's small-scale farmers. Many keep just a handful of birds to supplement the family income.

There are around 30 million such households, tucked deep into Indonesia's vast territory. It is these so-called "backyard farmers" that have presented the government here with a challenge.

New tactic

Since bird flu first appeared in Indonesia three years ago, it has spread to 29 out of the country's 33 provinces, leading to the deaths of millions of birds, as well as at least 46 humans.

In villages like Punjang's where farming is usually free-range, and where chickens mix freely with those from neighbouring houses, viruses like H5N1 spread quickly.

In relation to tsunamis and earthquakes and malaria, this is still a low-profile event John Weaver, FAO in Jakarta

But with outbreaks often occurring simultaneously in villages thousands of kilometres away, getting to the affected areas fast enough to contain the disease is a problem.

And in Indonesia's heavily decentralised system, policies made in Jakarta are often held up or in practice even blocked at the local level.

So the government is trying a new tactic.

Backed by international organisations, it is putting in place specialist teams of vets at the provincial and the district level, to provide rapid response and surveillance at a grassroots level.

Elly Sudiana coordinates the programme from the Ministry of Agriculture in Jakarta.

She says the new teams have given the government a direct command line to the village level and that as a result, dealing with and reporting outbreaks has been much faster.

Teams of vets are being put together for education campaigns

But for the scheme to work, the teams will need to prevent future outbreaks too. And that is where the beans come in.

In rural areas, there is little information about how bird flu spreads. So the teams go door-to-door visiting every farmer, teaching them how to protect their chickens and themselves.

Back in Cijeler village in West Java, Wiwin runs through the basic rules with Punjang: put your chickens in a cage; do not keep them too close to the house; disinfect the area regularly; and burn any droppings.

His lone chicken continues to pluck at the ground in front of his house.

Punjang is saving up the money to replace his lost stock. He says he wishes he had known before to keep them caged.

Funding shortage

There is a desperate need for greater public awareness in Indonesia - especially in rural areas.

The government has launched a campaign on radio and television to try and get its message across. It has also increased the amount of compensation it will pay to farmers who cull sick birds and stream-lined the way that money can be paid.

Officials say more funding is needed to fight bird flu in Indonesia

But fighting bird flu will take much more money than is currently available. Teams like Wiwin's are expensive to run; they are currently operating in just nine of Indonesia's 29 affected provinces.

And government plans to vaccinate bird stocks have been dented by financial constraints too.

The Agriculture Ministry has bought 60 million doses of the vaccine, but there are 300 million chickens in Indonesia, and it is not clear how the shortfall will be made-up.

International donors have pledged around $50m (£26.8m) next year to help Indonesia fight bird flu. The government says it needs more than $350m to carry out its National Plan.

But it has also cut its own contribution, something that international organisations say has made it harder to generate donations.

According to John Weaver, a senior technical advisor with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation in Jakarta, part of the problem is that bird flu is competing with other major problems in Indonesia.

"In relation to tsunamis and earthquakes and malaria, this is still a low-profile event," he says. "So politically, the leaders of these provinces give it the priority you'd expect, which is not very high."

Indonesia says it needs the money it has cut from the budget to pay for reconstruction in the wake of this year's earthquake in Yogyakarta.

But while the human cases continue to creep into the headlines, bird flu experts worry that if Indonesia's problem is left to grow, it could become a global one.