Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Feb 21, 2006
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Feb 21, 2006 |
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Agri-Biz & Commodities
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Poultry Farmers at their wit's end
Amit Mitra
Mumbai , Feb. 20 FIFTY ONE-year-old H.D.Patil, who owns a 40,000-bird capacity poultry firm on a dusty road off the Mumbai-Goa highway at Palspa Phata, does not have time to browse through newspapers on a Sunday. For, that is usually his busiest day of the week, when traders pour in to his farm for chicken. But, even if had read the morning papers on February 19, and read about the about the bird flu outbreak in Maharashtra, he would not have been prepared for the shock that was to follow. "I was sitting with my (bird) stocks, and not a single vehicle turned up to lift them. Only then I saw the newspaper reports. There were instances earlier when poultry farms were affected by a disease outbreak and prices hit rock-bottom. But on this Sunday, there was absolutely no one to pick up any stocks. On normal Sundays, my sales touch 800 to 1,000 birds," he says. When this correspondent visited his farm on Monday afternoon, Patil was seen feeding his birds. But he does not know how long he can continue to feed them, if there was no one to pick up his stocks. "If only the (media) reports had appeared the next day on Monday, I would not have inventories overflowing," he says. Patil's story sums up the owners of some 200-odd poultry farms, with an estimated combined capacity of about 13 lakh birds, in Raigad district of Maharashtra, which supplies chicken to the Mumbai market. Almost the entire consumption of Mumbai is handled by these farms, which are spread all over the district. Indeed, the poultry farmers in the district are clueless about the near future. They have no idea how to dispose of their stocks, which, they claim, are healthy and not affected the slightest bit by any disease. "We have to sell the birds within 35 to maximum 45 days. We can continue to feed them for some more days thereafter. But after that, we do not know... Maybe we will have to kill them ourselves, if the situation does not improve," said another poultry farm owner, close to the Patil Farm. "Yesterday (Sunday) sales at the farm level dropped by 80 per cent and it further plummeted on Monday. Farmers who sell 800 birds a day struggled to sell 50 or 60. What is distressing is that none of the farms have shown any signs of any disease — the birds are all healthy," pointed out Dr Vani, a poultry consultant at Panvel. This correspondent came across poultry farmers who have sold their stocks at their farms at Rs. 15 per kg, as against the prevailing rate of about Rs 38 per kg. "Many of us are even to go down (the price ladder) further, but there are just no buyers," a Panvel farmer lamented. The situation has put a debilitating financial squeeze on the farmers, given the fact that each bird needs an average of 150 grams of feed per day. Patil of Patil farm says his loss could touch Rs. 4.5 lakh, if the situation did not improve within the next few days. "Right now I have a stock of about 20,000 birds. I will wait for three or four more days," he says. What will he do after that? "I frankly do not know. I will wait for the advice from our industry people... I really do now know. One thing is for certain, I cannot continue to feed the birds," he says. The poultry farmers have invested on an average of Rs 1 lakh for a 1,000-bird capacity farm. And with prices of feed and other inputs rising, the farmers are facing a financial crunch.
More Stories on : Poultry | Health | Maharashtra
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