Astral Foods calls for government support as bird flu vaccination programme

ASTRAL Foods, which is planning to expand its recently approved bird flu vaccination programme, wants the government to ease conditions for such initiatives and to finalize payments of compensation to the industry for birds culled to control diseases in the past few years.

- TAWANDA KAROMBO

This appeal comes in the wake of mounting challenges within the poultry industry, which has been grappling with heightened biosecurity risks following successive bird flu outbreaks. Gary Arnold, CEO of Astral Foods, told Business Report in an interview on Tuesday that the company will ramp up its poultry vaccination against bird flu. This comes after the company on Monday announced that the Department of Agriculture had approved its bird flu vaccination program at one of its farms in the country.