Bird flu outbreak hits poultry prices; sales plummet in North

The scare caused by the outbreak of avian flu noted in 6 States has started off impacting the beleaguered poultry sector.

Prices of poultry goods these types of as chicken meat and eggs have taken a beating above the past few of times as people have started off shunning them.

Prices decline

In North India, the steep decline in offtake has impacted the charges, stated Ramesh Chander Khatri, President of Poultry Federation of India (PFI).

“The farm-gate charges of chicken have started off slipping noticeably in the previous couple times. Although the selling price was between ₹90 and ₹100 a kg previous week, it is now remaining sold for ₹50-55 a kg. Even the usage is down by virtually 70 per cent,” Khatri stated incorporating that this was mostly because of to needless scare remaining made by the media that poultry usage could lead to contracting the an infection.

Daily offtake suffers

According to Khatri, the daily usage of chicken in North India, on an normal, is all over two.five crore kg. PFI has above two,000 customers, including quite a few main poultry farms in the state.

Khatri stated the scare has also caused a dent in egg usage in north India. Each usage and charges have long gone down by fifteen to twenty per cent because the situations were being noted, he stated.

Md Imran Sharef, who owns Al-Maaz Foodstuff at Asia’s biggest poultry industry at Ghazipur in Delhi, too, agreed that chicken charges have arrive down noticeably. “Chicken charges have been fluctuating commonly in the previous couple times. The charges are somewhat up now and we are marketing it for ₹60-65 a kg,” Sharef stated.

Layer birds, ducks & crows

Chicken flu is verified in 6 States – Haryana, Himachal, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, according to Division of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD). There was some uncommon mortality of sixteen birds in a DDA (Delhi Enhancement Authority) park in south-west Delhi, but the samples are sent to the Nationwide Institute of Significant Security Animal Diseases in Bhopal. In most States, barring Haryana and Kerala, hen flu was verified either in crows or in migratory birds. In Haryana’s Barwala (Panchkula district), layer birds were being discovered to be afflicted, whilst in Kerala’s Idukki and Kottayam districts the an infection was discovered in ducks.

Khatri, who has his business at Sonepat in Haryana, stated, “it was layer birds not broiler birds that are afflicted in Panchakula. Other than, the an infection cannot spread considerably and large from an contaminated poultry farms. Birds anywhere further than 3-five km absent from the farm are completely risk-free.” He also stated that virtually fifty,000 birds in these farms have already been culled.

The DAHD statement stated the an infection was discovered in some migratory birds in Junagarh district in Gujarat and the Bhopal laboratory has verified it was avain flu.

Southern situation

Meanwhile, in South also, poultry sector has arrive beneath strain in Telangana and Kerala. “Prices of broiler chicken have fallen by five-10 per cent in some locations of Hyderabad. The egg charges (at the farmgate) fell to ₹4 a piece from ₹4.60 early this week,” a poultry farm owner stated. The retail rate of chicken is ruling five-10 per cent lessen than previous week’s selling price of ₹200/kg.

While the usage has not been impacted considerably, Telangana poultry has suffered in the form of slackened need from other States. “We are just one of the major a few poultry players in the state. While the hen flu has not impacted the birds here, it did hurt the consumer sentiment,” an formal of Telangana Poultry Federation stated.

Slack need

Binny Emmatty, president of Poultry Farmers and Traders Samithy in Kerala, stated that the consumer behaviour in direction of chicken meat and eggs has diminished the retail need and there was a twenty per cent fall in product sales in the previous two times.

Kerala consumes just one crore kg of chicken per week valued at ₹100 crore. Of this, fifty per cent of the creation is satisfied from the Condition itself.

TP Sethumadhavan, Deputy Director, Animal Husbandry Division, Kerala, stated that they have initiated appropriate outreach programmes to develop awareness between people on poultry goods.

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