Tamil Nadu Egg Poultry Farmers’ Federation has urged the Prime Minister to allow them to import soya beans from other countries so as to lessen their burden due to increase in the cost of the product.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, its vice-president V. Subramaniyam said that soya bean is an important raw material for the poultry feed.
Despite increase in production of soya bean in the current year, the price is on the rise as poultry farmers were unable to meet the expenses resulting in huge loss.
The letter said that the situation is same in the past three years as the industry was unable to withstand the frequent price hike. Mr. Subramaniyam said that the price hike is unnatural as traders are hoarding the product aiming at unreasonable profit. “Traders refuse to sell the product and are creating artificial demands making the price to go up,” he said.
He said that due to the present situation, farmers are forced to purchase soya bean for higher price thereby causing heavy loss to them. “The government can instruct the State governments to initiate action against hoarders,” he said.
The letter also urged the Central government to grant permission to the poultry farmers to import soya beans without import tax for a period of six months so as to face the current crucial period. Also, soya beans can be removed from online trading list as it creates artificial demand.
Poultry farmers said that the average feed price for 75 kg have increased from Rs. 925 in 2005 to Rs. 1,458 in 2008, Rs. 1,817 in 2011, Rs. 2,257 in 2012 and Rs. 2,105 in the current year. They added that the current price of oil extracted soyabean with 46 per cent protein is Rs. 37 per kg while soyabean with 50 per cent protein is Rs. 41. “The price had gone up by more than 20 per cent in the past one year,” they added.
“It’s an important raw material for poultry feed and import will curb price rise”
