Pandemic leaves poultry sector in dire straits

Shortage of feed hits business hard

Reeling under COVID-19 restrictions and rock-bottom sales, the poultry sector in the State has now been severely affected by shortage of feed.

Farm gate chicken price dropped to around ₹60 a kg on Saturday, while the farmer’s production cost is around ₹100, said S.K. Nazeer, general secretary, All Kerala Poultry Federation.

Until the business normalises, tens of thousands of poultry farmers will see little or no income, he said, claiming that the sector provided jobs to around five lakh people. However, around 70% of them are out of work, as they are unable to sell the birds at remunerative prices, while the production cost is high mostly due to expensive feed and shortage of supplies.

Mr. Nazeer said a pre-lockdown account for chicken sales stood around 22 lakh kg a day in the State, with some districts accounting for 2.5 to three lakh kg of sales. Nearly 50% of the sales went to catering and hotel enterprises. Incidentally, the lockdown has completely or partially closed eateries. Moreover, cancellation of weddings and other functions has speeded up the fall in sales, he added.

Kerala Poultry Farmers Association State president Baiju Kadavan said along with feed shortage and fall in sales due to pandemic restrictions, others like high cost of electricity had added to the burden of farmers. He added that the electricity bill for a small farm had gone up from ₹500 to ₹3,000.

According to him, poultry farmers should be able to fix the prices of birds and called for a government initiative to encourage bird rearing and sales on the lines of Milma. Mr. Kadavan said his recent experience had been chicken being sold at ₹83 a kg in the retail market, while the production cost was in the same range. Farmers are unable to get a price to support the business, he added.

K.K. Ramanan of Kerala Poultry Farmers Association from Edakkattuvayal in Ernakulam, which was once renowned for its poultry farms, said he had given up the business owing to difficulties in maintaining it. He added that most farms at Edakkattuvayal had shut down operations for various reasons.

A senior scientist associated with the poultry sector said there was no major poultry feed production unit in Kerala. The steep rise in the cost of edible oil has triggered the rise in feed price, Mr. Nazeer said, adding that the cost of feed had gone up to ₹2,000 per 50 kg bag this week from the previous level of around ₹1,500. Besides, supplies have dwindled severely.