The Hindu Business Line : Bird flu: Threat of glut haunts poultry sector

Hatching problems
Eggs are being lifted at a discount of 25-30 paise against the official price of Rs 1.55 a piece.
Poultry farmers are exerting pressure to cut the prices further.

G. Gurumurthy

Coimbatore, Aug. 1 The poultry sector in Tamil Nadu is haunted by the threat of a market glut, especially in layer segment, in view of drastic fall in table egg offtake for exports.

The curtailment of shipment of shell eggs from Namakkal due to fears of bird flu in Manipur has been reported in the last few days. The daily shipment to Gulf markets from Namakkal has dropped by some 30 lakh eggs thereby, affecting the domestic market, sources in Namakkal egg trade said. The daily egg shipment from the Namakkal region in normal time is estimated at about 50-60 lakh pieces.

The stagnation in export has began to hit the egg price in the domestic market with the layer farmers/egg trade putting pressure on further reducing the prices, the sources said.

The National Egg Coordination Committee’s (NECC) zonal committee at Namakkal, despite pressures, continues to keep its farm-gate price at Rs 1.55 per egg. But the actual lifting is happening only at 25-30 paise discounted rate.

Curtail egg output

The NECC zonal committee Chairman, Dr P. Selvaraj, conceding the current market pressures on the egg trade said the present crisis was on account of the diversion of export surplus egg to local market. “To neutralise the situation, we have initiated already steps to curtail egg production through culling of birds and also by way of forced molting of birds (starving the birds through reduced feeding) that would lead to reduced laying,” he added.

Dr Selvaraj said these measures could result in reducing the bird population by 40-50 lakh birds, which could be achieved within two to three weeks. This would enable sustaining the egg price in local sale at around Rs 1.50-1.60 per piece. In the prevailing market conditions, layer farmers are forced to sell their eggs at 20 per cent below the cost of production which is put at Rs 1.48 per egg.

Broiler market hit

In the meantime, the broiler market in the State too, has taken a hit partly due to slow down in live chicken offtake in the Kerala market whose requirements are partly met by fish arrivals and partly by the bird flu fear affected market environment.

According to Mr Lakshmanan, President of the Palladam-based State Broiler Coordination Committee (BCC), though August would be generally a dull season for broiler, the bird flu reports too, added to the sluggishness. This has led to erosion in the wholesale prices by 25 per cent or so. The BCC has set the current farm-gate price at Rs 27, down by Rs 5 against its production cost of Rs 32. But the actual lift off is reported at Rs 3-4 below the BCC rate.