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The National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) has appealed against the reduction in the customs duty structure on American chicken legs and also wants anti-dumping duty to be levied on such processed products,
The appeal comes in the wake of reports that the Ministry of External Affairs has suggested allowing free import of American chicken legs in return for the US allowing shipments of Indian basmati rice and fruits.
Following India’s commitments to WTO, quantitative restrictions on import of poultry products were removed in 2001, and customs duty was increased to 100 per cent to protect farmers from uneven competition from subsidised exports.
The proposed suggestion, if implemented, will remove that safety net and destroy the economic viability and livelihood of millions of poultry farmers, NECC said in a release.
According to the release, in the US, while the whole chicken retails at $4 per kg, chicken breast meat, considered premium, costs $7.9 per kg. Chicken legs are sold at $3.4 per kg in retail and exported at 40-80 cents per kg or lesser.
Companies in US earn all their profits on the sale of breast/breast meat in their domestic market.
For them, chicken legs are merely a by-product, and millions of tonnes remain unsold in warehouses of poultry processing companies for periods as long as even 10 years. Thanks to liberal government subsidies, chicken legs are dumped in developing countries at throw-away prices.
Such dumping had destroyed the poultry industries of Sri Lanka, Philippines Vietnam and Mexico, and, severely damaged the industry in Russia, leading these countries to impose a ban and stringent restrictions on imports from the US.
With annual production of 65,000 million eggs and 3.8 million tonnes of poultry meat, India is the second largest egg producer and the third largest broiler producer in the world. The poultry sector contributes Rs 95,000 crore to the GNP and provides direct and indirect employment to over 5 million people, NECC has said, adding that the industry's interests needed to be protected.
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