Nishita Islam of Dhaka is the mother of a seven-year-old, and chicken is one of her child's favourite foods, so she regularly cooks broiler chicken or fries it for him.

Now she is worried by reports that broilers are being given fast-growth feed. "Chicken is essential for a child's nutrition. But if there is something harmful in this too, where will we go?" she said.

In Bangladesh at present, the broiler, known as farm chicken, plays the biggest role in meeting nutritional needs.

According to the Bangladesh Poultry Industry Coordination Committee, there are around 70,000 poultry farms across the country. Hatcheries large and small produce on average about 1.5 crore broiler chicks a week, and the government expects weekly production of day-old chicks to reach about 2.5 crore by 2021.

However, Ashraf Ali Khan Khasru, state minister for fisheries and livestock, has alleged that farmers, hoping for extra profit, are giving broiler chicks feed that causes abnormal weight gain. He advised them instead to raise chickens on balanced feed.

He told BBC Bangla: "Some dishonest people used to buy chicken feed from Europe and re-package it in the Middle East. There they mixed in something harmful to human health."

Source: BBC Bangla. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.