New rules for poultry farms

• The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has issued a comprehensive and varied guideline in August 2021 for poultry farming.
• According to new guidelines, now small and marginal poultry farmers will have to take measures to prevent environmental pollution similar to bigger poultry farmers.
• Environmental pollution from poultry farms is mainly due to the generation of NH3 & H2S gases causing odor, dust from feed mill, storage & management of Solid Waste also causing odour & water from cleaning operations.

Major guidelines:

Based on the number of handling of birds, Poultry farms may be classified into three categories.

1. Small (5,000-25,000 bird)
2. Medium (above 25,000-1,00,000 birds)
3. Large (above 1,00,000 birds)

• The poultry farms under small category are in unorganized sector run by economically weaker farmers and are of rural background.
• As per the 20th livestock census carried out by Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, the total number of poultries is 851.8 million.

Certificate of Consent to Establishment or Consent to Operate:

• For establishing and operating a medium-sized poultry farm, a farmer needs to get a certificate of Consent.
• Permission will be valid for 15 years.

Curbing pollution:

• The poultry farm should have a ventilated room to reduce the gaseous pollution from the birds.
• Dead birds should be removed daily, and buried them three metres above the ground water level.
• A farm should be set up 500 metres away from a residential area, 100 metres from rivers, lakes, canals and drinking water sources, 100 metres from national highways and 10-15 metres from village footpaths and rural roads.

Implementation:

• The Animal Husbandry Department will be responsible for implementing the guidelines at the state and district level.