Chicken farmers in the soup as flu scare waters down price

Samples collected on Wednesday from the Kalady duck farm where birds were found dead in large numbers within a few days. Photo: H. Vibhu

Bad news travels fast. And poultry traders know it better.

Poultry meat price fell between 10 and 20 per cent in the Ernakulam market on Wednesday as news of bird flu in some districts spread. Farmers have blamed what they called an “overreaction” to the developments by the public.

A trader in Kochi said bird meat was selling for just over Rs. 80 a kg in the retail market and that the wholesalers had not lowered bird price. But farmers fear that the situation might get grimmer with media coverage of culling of ducks in Alappuzha and Kottayam districts.

A poultry farmer here said Ernakulam had one of the largest concentrations of broiler birds among districts in Kerala and received about 25 lakh one-day-old chics per week. The district is also home to about two crore broiler birds.

Perumbavoor, Moovattupuzha, Piravom, Ayavana, Koovappady etc in the district have big concentration of poultry farms. The dominant system in the State is that big poultry business houses outside the State provide chics and feed to farmers. The farmers are paid between Rs. five and six a kg of meat when the companies buy back the birds, said a farmer here.

It has developed well so that big meat birds are no longer imported into the State in large quantities and Kerala now produces between 60 and 70 per cent of its poultry meat requirement.

The State receives around one crore chics per week, said Kerala Poultry Development Corporation sources on Wednesday. Internal production of chics range between 10 and 15 lakh per month, they said.Per capita consumption of poultry meat in Kerala is 10.8 kg per year. Kerala also imports about a crore of eggs per day and local production is in the range of 30 and 40 lakh per day.