The Hindu Business Line : Chilly North warms up egg prices

GRIPPING cold-wave conditions in North India has warmed up the southern layer poultry farmers as rising egg consumption in upcountry centres has pushed up the table egg price, in consonance with the price trend prevailing across most other production centres in the South.

The wholesale egg price in Tamil Nadu's premier poultry production zone of Namakkal has breached the Rs 1.50-mark for the first time in recent months.

The Namakkal zonal committee of the National Egg Coordination Committee in its price review meeting on Monday raised the per egg farm-gate price from last week's Rs 1.50 to Rs 1.53 per egg. Tamil Nadu wholesale price has moved in tandem with the prevailing prices in Andhra Pradesh.

With the demand from northern centres anticipated to go up or sustain at a higher level in the next few weeks, there is every likelihood that the Tamil Nadu price, especially from Namakkal zone, will rise further later this week when the zonal committee may have its mid-week sitting on Thursday.

Sources close to the NECC Namakkal zone told Business Line that the price surge has been fuelled by a strong export demand coupled with increased winter off-take of eggs from Tamil Nadu and a perceptible drop in the layer production at farm level in the State.

As against the earlier per day layer production of 1.25 crore eggs, the current table egg production in Namakkal is reported to have come down to around 1.02 crore.

The growing egg shipments from Namakkal zone into West Asia have buttressed the gaps in demand-supply and it is estimated that the egg exports from the zone together with the processed egg shipments constitute about 20 per cent of the total per day egg production. An average 12-13 lakh eggs and processed egg, in the form of egg powder, equivalent to another 8 lakh pieces are being shipped every day.

The sources say major layer farms and the trade in the zone despatch 7 lakh to 10 lakh eggs daily to cater to the northern consuming centres and these are mostly to the Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan markets.

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