We sympathised with the ducks inside -- they could not run around under the blue skies or waddle about in clear water. Instead, each of them has to share a one square-metre room with five others for what amounts to a sentence of life imprisonment. These poor little inmates are not only deprived of the chance of exercising in the open air during their entire lives, but are also subject to all kinds of spontaneous check-ups, each of which may lead to early execution. Even more unfortunate for the inmates, the Department of Livestock Development (DLD) has entrusted its officials with the power to execute any of them in order to stamp out any possible corruption at the farm.

We met a DLD official who happened to be on an inspection tour at the duck farm. He was chatting with the farm staff, and his smiling and nodding suggested that he was apparently a frequent visitor. This DLD official told us that he was very busy with inspection tours among dozens of poultry farms in the province, adding that his job was to issue permits for each key link in the poultry-raising process.

Large poultry farms in Thailand usually import parent stocks from Britain and France. There are many key links in the duck-raising process, which are under the DLD supervision. DLD constantly sends inspection officials to the farms to check the newly arrived parent ducks, sanitary conditions as well as incubation and slaughtering facilities. Despite all of these complicated measures and close supervision, the ducks in this farm only qualify for domestic sale. Japanese and European Union markets demand much more strict biosecurity measures.

Still, this did not mean that permission to visit this farm came easily. Inter Press Service (IPS) Asia-Pacific, organiser of the workshop around which this field visit was arranged, had also tried to arrange a visit to the largest poultry enterprise near Bangkok - which declined the request. It then persuaded this medium-size farm to receive our group of international journalists. IPS Asia-Pacific also tried to have five reporters with cameras allowed inside the duck houses, but this request was turned down.

Poultry farms have reason to refuse visitors. Hundred of thousands of birds were culled after bird flu hit central and northern areas of Thailand in July 2006. The outbreaks also killed two humans and more than a thousand people were quarantined.

When bird flu re-emerged in Southeast Asia during the turn of 2003 and 2004, the Thai government paid farmers twice the market price for each culled bird. This generous compensation policy was regarded as very effective in controlling the epidemic, despite the huge cost. Nowadays, compensation has fallen to 75 percent of market price for each culled bird. This change in the compensation policy has been interpreted as the government's intention to urge the poultry industry to strengthen biosecurity measures that were not faithfully implemented in practice.

In this sense, bird flu has had some good effect in promoting food security awareness and the modernisation of the poultry industry.

Editor:Du Xiaodan