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At Rs 5-6 a piece, you may be thinking that the egg prices have hit the roof. But on every egg that you buy, the producer is making a loss of Re 1.
"What farmers are getting is just Rs 3.80 - 4, leaving them in a loss of Re 0.75 - 1. In the last one month, the poultry farmers suffered a loss of Rs 7,500 crore," Chakradhar Rao, President of the Indian Poultry Equipment Manufacturers' Association (IPEMA), has said.
" Each farmer has lost about Rs 250 on every bird that he owns owns in the last nine months, " he said.
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Talking to BusinessLine on the sidelines of Poultry India 2019 here on Wednesday, he said that the poultry sector is reeling under severe stress due to increased cost of production, particularly feed costs.
He said the industry can't take the cost burden if the farmers are forced to reduce the number of birds in a cage.
Claimed to be the Asia's biggest poultry expo, the three-day event, which began today, attracted over 375 poultry equipment and product companies from India and abroad.
Protests
The event witnessed protests by angry poultry farmers who demanded support prices for their produce.
They created a flutter in the inaugural as they raised slogans, holding placards.
They alleged that the NECC (National Egg Coordination Committee) has failed to attend to their grievances. Demanding elections to the national body, they said the farmers in the egg production regions such as Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were losing heavily because of the lopsided pricing of the egg.
"The NECC is not coordinating well. They need to convene regular meetings with stakeholders such as farmers, farms and traders to listen to the issues on the ground," A K P, who represents the Namakkal constituency in the Lok Sabha, said.
Echoing the views expressed by the protestors, he said the (egg) production have been hit very hard because of the poor pricing issues.
Telangana Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivasa Yadav assured that the issue of support price would be discussed at the upcoming meeting of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on the poultry industry.
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