The Hindu Business Line : Ban on Indian poultry items hits Gulf importers

Bird flu aftermath
Landed costs up at 120 dirhams from 48-50 dirhams for 360 eggs
American sellers set stiff terms for shipping
Poultry trade team to visit Gulf nations

Coimbatore , March 31

It is not only Indian poultry trade that has high stakes in protecting its export interests and is hence dismayed over developments post bird-flu outbreak.

Importers of Indian shell eggs in West Asia, notably Dubai or Bahrain, are too equally affected by the stoppage of poultry imports from India.

Apart from the sheer logistics advantage that has rendered poultry exports from India to the Gulf region a smooth and relatively cost-effective affair all along, the flexible trade arrangement prevailing between the two has also helped fusing the exports growing multi-fold in the last three years, say the poultry sources here.

In the absence of the Indian poultry supplies, importers of poultry products in the Gulf currently stand to get their supplies either from the US or Brazil for which the minimum sailing time will be 45-50 days, Shipments from India via Tuticorin or Kochi/Mumbai ports used to reach the Gulf within 3-5 days. Not only the time lag, but the freight also has pushed up the final cost for the Gulf consumers.

Higher costs

As against the average cost of 48-50 dirhams per box of 360 eggs imported from India (the shipments made in January, prior to the recent ban in the Gulf), the importers there are to bear an average landed cost of 120 dirhams for the same number of eggs imported from the South American countries.

Stiff trade terms

Unlike the stiff trade terms to be complied in the case of imports from the US/Brazil shippers, the trade in Gulf find the commercial terms with their Indian counterparts less exacting and negotiable.

"In fact the poultry trade in Dubai is keen to resume imports of poultry from India and importers are sounding us to initiate early steps to normalise the trade path considering the fact that Tamil Nadu farms are free from avian diseases. But the hitch lies in the delay in getting the Centre approve the South-based poultry industry's plea to declare `Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry' as disease free zone," said Mr Valsan, Secretary of the All India Poultry Products Exporters Association.

Trade delegation

The State's poultry industry is also eager to take a trade delegation to the Gulf to appraise their market on the disease-free conditions of the farms in Tamil Nadu. It has submitted a proposal in this regard to the Tamil Nadu government asking the latter to take it up with the Centre. To convince the consumers of the importing countries on the safety of the poultry imports from India, one of two animal disease labs in Namakkal, the Avian Disease Lab run by the Department of Animal Husbandry and the one functioning under the veterinary college there, can be approved to certify the poultry exports made to the Gulf as stipulated by the importers there, Mr Valsan said.

Poultry industry representatives view that with increasing number of avian disease outbreaks reported in almost all the regions of the world, there is a need to have a re-look on the procedure adopted in declaring avian diseases.

This is more important from the Indian context because unlike the European countries or some of the smaller Asian poultry raising countries whose geographical expanse/spread are smaller compared to India.

Zoning relevant

Hence, zoning of the poultry regions of each country would be more relevant and would also lessen the hardship in undertaking disease surveillance/monitoring.

In this background, the poultry sector feels, the norms of the Organisation International Episodic (OIE) on outbreak of animal disease afflictions are to be redefined. "While the OIE norms have scope to confer `disease-free' status based on zoning of the region unaffected by the pandemic, we feel there is a strong case that the disease-free status should also be looked at from individual poultry farm even within the affected zones and thereby the approval of shipments could even be based on each container-wise and not country-wise," said Mr Valsan.

He said his organisation had written to the OIE on the redefining of the country-zoning.

More Stories on : Poultry | Industry Associations | Tamil Nadu

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