Bird flu outbreak hits poultry prices; sales plummet in North

The scare prompted by the outbreak of avian flu documented in six States has begun impacting the beleaguered poultry sector.

Prices of poultry products and solutions such as hen meat and eggs have taken a beating above the previous couple of days as consumers have begun shunning them.

Prices drop

In North India, the steep drop in offtake has impacted the price ranges, mentioned Ramesh Chander Khatri, President of Poultry Federation of India (PFI).

“The farm-gate price ranges of hen have begun slipping substantially in the final handful of days. Although the rate was involving ₹90 and ₹100 a kg final week, it is now staying offered for ₹50-fifty five a kg. Even the intake is down by approximately 70 for every cent,” Khatri mentioned adding that this was generally owing to pointless scare staying made by the media that poultry intake could lead to contracting the infection.

Every day offtake suffers

In accordance to Khatri, the everyday intake of hen in North India, on an average, is all around two.five crore kg. PFI has above two,000 customers, which includes many significant poultry farms in the state.

Khatri mentioned the scare has also prompted a dent in egg intake in north India. The two intake and price ranges have long gone down by fifteen to twenty for every cent considering the fact that the conditions ended up documented, he mentioned.

Md Imran Sharef, who owns Al-Maaz Meals at Asia’s major poultry market place at Ghazipur in Delhi, much too, agreed that hen price ranges have come down substantially. “Chicken price ranges have been fluctuating broadly in the final handful of days. The price ranges are marginally up right now and we are selling it for ₹60-65 a kg,” Sharef mentioned.

Layer birds, ducks & crows

Hen flu is confirmed in six States – Haryana, Himachal, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, in accordance to Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD). There was some abnormal mortality of sixteen birds in a DDA (Delhi Advancement Authority) park in south-west Delhi, but the samples are despatched to the Countrywide Institute of Substantial Protection Animal Illnesses in Bhopal. In most States, barring Haryana and Kerala, chook flu was confirmed either in crows or in migratory birds. In Haryana’s Barwala (Panchkula district), layer birds ended up located to be impacted, although in Kerala’s Idukki and Kottayam districts the infection was located in ducks.

Khatri, who has his office at Sonepat in Haryana, mentioned, “it was layer birds not broiler birds that are impacted in Panchakula. Moreover, the infection simply cannot distribute significantly and wide from an contaminated poultry farms. Birds anywhere over and above 3-five km away from the farm are totally secure.” He also mentioned that approximately fifty,000 birds in these farms have already been culled.

The DAHD assertion mentioned the infection was located in some migratory birds in Junagarh district in Gujarat and the Bhopal laboratory has confirmed it was avain flu.

Southern situation

In the meantime, in South also, poultry sector has come beneath tension in Telangana and Kerala. “Prices of broiler hen have fallen by five-ten for every cent in some areas of Hyderabad. The egg price ranges (at the farmgate) fell to ₹4 a piece from ₹4.sixty early this week,” a poultry farm operator mentioned. The retail amount of hen is ruling five-ten for every cent reduce than final week’s rate of ₹200/kg.

Although the intake has not been impacted considerably, Telangana poultry has endured in the variety of slackened need from other States. “We are just one of the top rated a few poultry players in the state. Although the chook flu has not impacted the birds in this article, it did hurt the buyer sentiment,” an formal of Telangana Poultry Federation mentioned.

Slack need

Binny Emmatty, president of Poultry Farmers and Traders Samithy in Kerala, mentioned that the buyer conduct to hen meat and eggs has decreased the retail need and there was a twenty for every cent fall in profits in the final two days.

Kerala consumes just one crore kg of hen for every week valued at ₹100 crore. Of this, fifty for every cent of the creation is met from the Condition alone.

TP Sethumadhavan, Deputy Director, Animal Husbandry Department, Kerala, mentioned that they have initiated ideal outreach programmes to produce consciousness among the consumers on poultry products and solutions.

(With inputs from KV Kurmanath in Hyderabad and V Sajeev Kumar in Kochi)