The Hindu Business Line : Egg prices may meet resistance at current levels

The poultry layer market, currently witnessing firming price, may see some taming in table egg prices in the coming weeks. The current farm-gate price at Rs 1.75 per egg, highest in recent times, may not sustain at this levels, though the rising feed cost too is casting a burden on poultry growers, sources in the table egg trade say.

The previous highest wholesale rate for the shell egg in the State was in February this year (just prior to the avian flu scare) when the rate was Rs 1.65 a piece.

Avian flu impact

The sources in the industry say that the overall drop in the layer birds and the bird flu incidents which made these growers not resume their bird rearing for sometime had cumulatively acted on the price recovery. The Namakkal-based poultry belt had resorted to production cut to tackle the worst market scenario faced by the farmers in the wake of the February bird disease scare. The skipped new bird release schedule and forced molting of birds (starvation of birds) adopted by the growers in the region in the past six months had brought down the daily egg production from the pre-February volume of 2.6 crore to around 2.2 crore, according to Mr Valson, Secretary of the Namakkal-based All India Poultry Products Exporters Association.

Expectation

The trade anticipates a marginal drop in the wholesale price over the next few weeks as the current rate may not sustain, especially with the export market, where a part of the demand for the West Asian market is currently met through imports from Saudi Arabia.

The domestic market off-take too is likely to face some price resistance at this level as the market fear there will be consumer resistance in the egg price breaching the Rs 2 at retail level. A drop of 10-15 paise per egg is possible over the next month

Despite the rise in the farm-gate price, the layer sector is not that confident because the average price for the shell egg till September remained low at 98 paise, thanks to the soaring cost of the maize, the major ingredient in the poultry feed.

Since June last, the maize price went up by Rs 200 a quintal severely affecting poultry farming.