Mass chicken-drowning ignites uproar
NZPA-AP Cairo The Egyptian press and Opposition parties are demanding explanations for why a Government company drowned 4.5 million chicks in the river Nile. The uproar already has cost the jobs of the president and board of directors of the poultry company and the head of the Agriculture Ministry’s chicken-feed supply division.
The incident also has developed into a favourite black-humour topic for the country’s editorial cartoonists. News reports quoted poultry company officials as saying they ordered the mass drowning last month because farmers, facing a feed shortage and financial problems caused by government price controls, had refused to accept the chicks.
“Al-Ahram al-Iktisadi,” a weekly economic review of the state-owned “al-Ahram” newspaper, described the dumping as an attempt by chicken farmers through the producers to “twist the arms of the Government and the Egyptian people to achieve their demands”. It referred to producer demands for economic reforms that included lifting of price controls on eggs,
' banning imports of poultry products, prohibiting establishment of new poultry farms and rescheduling of government farm loans. The government approved none of the demands. “The fact that the criminal was the General Poultry Company, a publicsector company, indicates a shady alliance” between the producers and the farmers, “al-Ahram al-Iktisadi” said.
A bitter debate has arisen in the Press between company officials, who insist they acted with the permission of the Agriculture Minister, Youssef Wali, and the minister who strongly denies approving the slaughter. The daily “al-Ahram” said the Minister vowed to “take severe deterrent action against those producers of chicken feed who refuse to sell (their products).”
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Press, 5 July 1985, Page 6
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267Mass chicken-drowning ignites uproar Press, 5 July 1985, Page 6
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