The poultry industry in Karnataka has suffered a huge blow owing to the COVID-19 outbreak with stakeholders reporting a drastic decline in price and sales.
After the outbreak of the virus, there were rumours linking the disease to the consumption of chicken and eggs. Despite efforts by the Animal Husbandry Department at the Centre and the State to convince people that there was no scientific evidence to link the two, the consumption of poultry products has witnessed a decline.
The retail price of dressed chicken, which was ₹140 per kg earlier this year, reached ₹40 per kg in some parts of the State by mid-March.
At the time when the dressed chicken was available at ₹140 per kg, the farm-gate price was around ₹82 per kg of live chicken, barely enough to cover the cost of production estimated to be around ₹ 80 per kg.
Though the State has an estimated 10,000 farms, more than 80% of farmers had tied up with leading poultry integrators.
Even though much of the economic distress will affect the integrators, independent poultry farmers are also at the receiving end. “When the market prices crash, such farmers are unable to bear further losses by spending on feed. Each bird consumes around 200 to 250 grams of feed daily,” said a source in the Karnataka Poultry Farmers and Broilers’ Association (KPFBA).
“An estimated 10,000 broilers farms across Karnataka were producing 10 lakh birds day earlier this year. Now, the production is barely 4 lakh in a day,” said Manjesh Kumar Jadav, chairman of the Broiler Co-ordination Committee of the Karnataka Poultry Farmers and Broilers’ Association (KPFBA).
